Adjusting to Peace
by burmafrd
Summary: Warrior Liz has to figure out how to start looking at the bigger picture.  AU of course.  All hail Jason Katims for creating Roswell.
1. Chapter 1

"So, you think this will get through?

"The Navy is supporting it and cutting out one MEF will save a lot. So I think we can get this done."

"You are not all that put out with losing an MEF?"

"Brutally speaking it was not needed. One for each area is enough in this day and age. One At Hawaii and one at Diego Garcia really will be enough. We have enough left in the states that can be sent by Aircraft elsewhere. Diego Garcia and Hawaii really does all we need. Bottom line is that having one on the gulf or Atlantic coast is just not logical anymore. And this way we keep the troops in the US until they are needed. Frankly that is why the Marines in Hawaii will go to Diego Garcia and the ones in the states go to Hawaii to pick up their ships if need be. The big dustups that the Marines might get into for the foreseeable future are all closer this way to our assets where they will be."

"So you do not see anything in Europe or South America that you need to worry about?"

"Nothing that the Army will not be all over first. Europe has always been solely army, and SA will now be. As regards Africa, not likely we ever go there in a big way with anything. The Middle East and everything there in that area is easily reached by the ships at Diego Garcia."

"Unless the Suez canal is closed."

"So what?"

"OK, I guess it does make sense."

"Korea, China, Southwest Asia is the most likely big problems in the future. We are better placed to respond to all of that in this plan. In the old days everything in the Pacific or touching it was supposed to be the Marines responsibility anyway. Europe only got added during the cold war to beef up the North. Temporary thing."

"OK. So that is how you are pushing this?"

"Did not have to push. Makes sense once it is explained. Not like the Army is interested anyway. As far as they are concerned only Korea is of interest to them. And there they have no problem sharing with us. Now moving from Okinawa to Hawaii will increase the response time for Korea significantly; so we are looking to keep the ships at Okinawa and just fly the personnel in."

"Hawaii is expensive."

"On Honolulu it is; not so at MCBH. We will have to expand that a fair amount but we have the room."

"The other part is going to make noise."

"Sure it will. But the case has been made and it is a good one. The mess with the F-35 B strengthens our hand."

"Just what is happening there?"

"We are going with the minimal buy; in other words no more than the 120 B's we are about to get."

"And THAT is why you want the Super Apache's."

"The big squawk about helicopters was not the speed; that was always just diversion. Marines operate at short ranges; so the kind of speed a jet gives is just not that big a deal. The real key has been loiter time. And until the Super Apache Loiter time for an attack helicopter was not enough. It can hang around with a full combat load for 5 hours. THAT is the critical factor. Add to that the fact that it can also carry a combination of AMRAMM and SIDEWINDER so that it can pretty will defend itself; and the tests that we have run show that a Super Apache just hovering above the ground is virtually impossible for airborne radar to find. Even the AWACs has trouble if it stays below 30 feet. So they can ambush incoming fighters let alone bombers. So as far as protecting themselves and others they can get it done. Sure the Apache cannot carry bombs but realistically that is not a big factor anymore. Those new guided 2.75's are also going to come in handy."

"I heard that they got Doberman to try them out and she loved them."

"Yeah. There were 42 separate targets and 42 rockets and she hit 38 of the targets and the others were near misses. And she did it in 60 seconds."

"I had not heard it was that good."

"One has to step back and remember just how good she is. So the odds are most of the other pilots will not do that well. But still it was something to see. The 2.75 carries a nice warhead. And they can tailor the mix in so many different ways. The Super Apache was built with that capability in mind; so it is just a matter of quick installation to use them. Bottom line is that the Super Apache can give us all the real ground support we need, take care of itself and the area it is in, and is going to be a lot cheaper than the F-35B. Really by now half the price."

"And they work."

"And they work NOW better than the F35B NOW and frankly probably in the future."

The call to test the new guided 2.75's was a bit of a surprise but Liz did not mind. The Super Apache had been built with that system in mind; and when in 2014 it began to get fielded it was just a matter of time before the SOAR's would get them. She was curious about it; all too often contractors made extravagant claims that upon testing tended to shrivel. But the capability to hit targets accurately with the 2.75's was very attractive. What had been the holdup was how the targeting system would work. Infrared was just too easily fooled, spoofed or confused; even with the most modern types. Laser guided meant keeping the designator on the target which means stationary for the platform which is not advisable in a combat area. Radar guide means locking in which takes time no matter what. Then someone had mentioned how small TV cameras and transmitters had gotten. From what Liz gathered, that is when things really took off. The ability to lock the camera on the target then fire was what got it done. Her helmet targeting system allowed her to put the cross hairs on the target and it would lock on immediately. She then can choose which warhead to use if she wanted. HE, Fragmentation, HEAT, WP. Or if she is unitary loaded just keep firing. She was rather proud of her score considering she only had one training mission before doing it for the show.

She had had her Apache loaded on the C-17, took her crew and copilot, and had gone to Aberdeen where she had one day to get ready and the next to fire. So she was quite pleased with herself. Only a month after the Pakistan operation it was still hard for her to go anywhere without being recognized in Uniform. And even on the bases it was not comfortable. The release of the transcripts and more to the point the audio parts had really fixated interest on her.

"Liz, maybe you should sort of step back and listen without putting yourself there. Try and listen like it is someone else. Then you might get the idea why it gets to so many. You are so cool; calm, matter of fact. Like someone talking about the weather happening somewhere else. You are directing an operation to prevent nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists; and at the moment some might be in that bunker trying to set one off. No one would know that listening to you."

That had come from Maria when she had talked to her not long after.

Unknown to her, most of her close friends had thought the same. In a strange sort of coincidence the Posse and Crew had ended up around Nashville in their post military lives. So naturally they got together at least once a month. Only a week after it got out they had gathered Shelby Park. While it was not all that warm, it was warmer than usual at almost 60 and sunny, so it was a nice day for the first week in February. The Crew were pilots for a tourist company, while most of the rest of them were working for a defense contractor who was working on advanced body armor and had hired a number of combat veterans to help figure it out. Needless to say the main topic of conversation was the event.

"I have known Liz for years yet hearing her like that in combat was just surreal. So cool; calm, almost matter of fact even though she might be looking at the opening event of WW3." This from Ruth.

Ellen sighed. "What you heard is what we heard during our time with her. Like someone ordering a pizza to go."

Jesse nodded. "I would have been surprised if she had been any other way."

"When she gave the orders to open fire-just like a wife telling a husband to take out the garbage." This from Susan.

"I keep wondering what she is going to do to top something; then this happens." From Vicki.

"I guess one should say how is she going to top this but I better keep quiet; she probably will." Came from Ellen.

Liz was glad to know that they were going to start getting the new guided 2.75" rockets; they could come in very handy. But she had an idea something else was going on; there had been a number of Navy and Marine corps highups there. So she asked Jim to sniff around.

A week later he came in to see her. She could tell he was bursting.

"OK, Jim, before you pop, let it out."

"You asked me to find out why all the squids and jarheads were interested in that 2.75 demonstration. You are right that it was not important enough for them to be there. Just got word from someone I know pretty well; they were much more interested in seeing you and the Super Apache perform then just the rockets. That ties in with something else I heard; that the Marines are willing to drop one of their MEF's."

That made Liz's eyebrows go right up. For years the Marines had fought tooth and nail to keep all three MEF's. For them to just give one up was very interesting. Even with the cuts in the budget that had not been something that was pushed hard enough to go through. For them to voluntarily give it up meant they were trading it for something else.

Jim went on. "They are going to stand down the MEF that was based out of North Carolina. Okinawa will go to Hawaii. Pendleton will go to Diego Garcia. Basically they think they do not need one on the East coast or for Europe; and it makes sense from the long view. And they really do not mind downsizing some; they can spread it over a period of years and do it by attrition. But one problem they have had was the whole F-35B mess."

Liz winced. The F-35B was supposed to be the VTOL and STOL version of the F-35; Liz had always wondered why anyone thought that was a good idea. They should have just upgraded the Harrier instead of wasting all that money trying to make the F-35 do everything. The F-35A was the successor to the F-16; and the F-35B was to be the successor to the Harrier. The F-35C was supposed to be the successor to the F-18. No one was really surprised at all the problems that came up. The Marines had got 120 of the 340 F-35B's but were not going to get the rest under the current budget crunch and frankly did not want them. So they were going to keep them; but would be using them to replace their F-18's. Not the Harriers as originally thought. This tied in with their wish to fully separate themselves from needing the Fleet Carriers around at all. The F-35B's could operate from any good sized ship technically; though realistically not due to the support requirements. That was when the light dawned; what they wanted to use to replace the Harriers. She looked at Jim who was grinning.

"So they are now after Super Apache's to take the place of the Harriers."

"Makes sense. We can hang around longer than the Harriers can and need less overall maintenance. Smaller logistical footprint. And we are cheaper than more F-35B's by almost half. We cannot drop bombs but they really do not need that and admit it; they want accurate close up support. Nothing is better than a Super Apache at that. Now with the guided 2.75's we can really get it done. They will still use their AH-1Z's for direct support to each battalion; but we can do so much more. And with our capability to use both Sidewinders and AMMRAMS, we have a significant air to air capability. You heard about those exercises?"

Liz nodded. Putting Super Apache's low above the ground at under 30 feet meant that even AWACS could not spot them; let alone airborne radar in a regular fighter. So you could stay in the weeds and ambush an incoming attack before they even knew they were being targeted. So there was nothing outside of dropping bombs that the Super Apache could not do that the Harriers did. They were nowhere near as fast but realistically what did that matter for Marines?

"So more Super Apache's are going to be built."

"Looks that way. They will save billions letting that MEF go; so they can put it into the Super Apache's."

SOCOM was getting this from a somewhat higher source.

"This has been kicked around for a while. They have kept the various subcontractors going on a slow basis for spare parts; they actually have enough to build about 30 more right now. So they can get the 96 they want for the two MEF's; giving them two of their squadrons (each squadron is like one of our battalions) for each MEF. But I can bet you know where this is going."

"They will want the SOAR to train them."

"The Marines have very specifically requested Colonel Parker to train them."

"I guess one should not be surprised."

"This has been in the works for about a year."

"Hmm. Just about the time that people began to recognize what a Super Apache could do."

"Since it came to my attention about the same time, you can bet they were talking to each other about if for months before that."

"So they are going to want to detach Colonel Parker for that."

"Cannot fault their logic. She also made a name for herself as training officer for the 160th. They are still trying to find someone good as she was two years later."

SOCOM winced a little at that. He had indeed been forced to relieve the 160th commander; and one of the problems had been that he was not pushing training like he should have been. Though to be fair, finding a training officer as good as Parker had proven to be very difficult indeed. They were still using her plans but the extra gift she had for getting them done no one had been able to duplicate. Luckily he had been able to keep his previous Aviation chief there and they were training us a new commander that looked promising. But the training officer had been more difficult to replace. As a matter of fact his Aviation chief had had a meeting with him just the day before.

"So how goes the slumming?"

"Funny. Frankly being back in command of a unit sounded better before I did it. Forgot about all the BS you have to put up with. And the paperwork. On the other hand it beats sitting behind a desk just worrying about the next meeting."

"How is the training situation?"

There was a very definite pause there. "Not bad."

SOCOM looked at him and just waited.

"OK. Not great at all. Barely adequate. No matter who I seem to try, no one has the gift she had. She really trained everyone up to a degree I did not realize."

"She is that much better?"

"Yes."

Remembering the conversation SOCOM looked at the Chairman.

"They still miss her there as a trainer as well. Still has not been adequately replaced."

"Amazing. But then she is as gifted a pilot as she is a leader; so maybe it is not so surprising. But to be that good at training as well is extremely rare."

"It all adds up when you look at it. She is superb at rebuilding units or remaking them; so being a great training officer is no surprise; she has the combat experience to go with the gift of being able to understand what it takes to get people ready for combat. And that is rare as we are finding out."

"So you are going to have to detach her for a time."

SOCOM was thinking furiously on this. He looked at the Chairman.

"But we have no one to take her place at the 161st. Her XO is strictly admin."

The Chairman nodded. "And there is the rub. I was going to point that out but I wanted to be sure I was right. We definitely need to start thinking about her replacement anyway; she is going right up the ladder now. Command School then her star; and there is going to be a knife fight for her services."

SOCOM sighed. "Those positions are just about the toughest around to fill as they are truly unique. I admit I did not realize it until the last year or so."

"Which is another reason the Alternate Promotion board is gaining steadily in importance. Basically positions like those are not going to really be filled by normal officers. You need the unique and the maverick for those areas; the very things that over the last 20 years the regular military has tried to stamp out using all the cookie cutter requirements for promotion. Which is coming back to bite their asses big time. Hardly a week goes by without someone in the media or congress or the like talking about the nameless faceless so called leaders of our military."

SOCOM mused. "We have been very lucky here in SOCOM because we are insulated from all that."

"Because until USCOCOM was created you were small potatoes; not worth worrying about. You saw over the last 20 years that once they recognized how much influence was coming here they tried to start horning in."

"True. It was only because we got the support of presidents and SECDEFS plus congress that we resisted straight legs being sent here to command positions. It was a very slick deal that got through congress that made it a requirement to have had Special Forces or Special Operations experience to be a SOCOM commander."

"I can still remember when someone pointed that out as regards trying to slip one in back in 2008 and it was pointed out that it was not allowed. The impact on the cookie cutters was fun to see. Not even a deputy is allowed."

SOCOM grinned at that then sobered. "Still does not help my problem; I cannot have her gone from her command for 6 months; even if she is here in Campbell that does not let her keep an eye on her command; or keep it tight and ready. Sure she can fly back quickly but that is nowhere near good enough. We do NOT have anyone that is ready to backstop her."

The Chairman nodded. "I thought not. So obviously the answer is to send the Marines there. They would like to train over water anyway."

"That would make it kind of crowded. Though I guess they could manage one Squadron at a time."

"That might work. Send the 160th Apache's over there to train as well. They need it from what I hear."

SOCOM winced again. It had been just over a year and a half since Parker had stopped training the 160th; and their edge had dulled significantly. Just how significantly had been demonstrated just a month ago when they had been put through a no notice inspection and had been sent up to maneuver and fire at moving targets. They had not failed, but it had not been a good performance. Which was another reason his acting chief had not been happy about things.

Not long after the chairman left SOCOM decided to visit Campbell. He found the acting Chief going over performance evaluations. Since he had not told anyone he was coming it was not surprising people were scrambling as he came through the door.

"Sir. I take it something is going on?"

He nodded and closed the door of the office behind him. Then filled him in on the situation. The SOCOM Aviation Chief and acting commander, 160th SOAR sighed.

"Got to give the Marines credit for being smart. As slick a piece of horse trading as I have seen for a while. No doubt they will have the clout to have Parker detached TDY to train them; which leaves us really with a short load. Jim Harkness is a very good admin man but there is no way he can lead them in combat."

"The Chairman has suggested they send one Squadron at a time to her to train. It will be a tight fit but possible."

He relaxed at that. "OK, now I can get off the chair and take the noose off of my neck."

SOCOM grinned. "Thought that would help. But he did mention how the Super Apaches of the 160th did not look so good. I guess it is not surprising the word got out."

"Yeah. If anything was needed to ram home the need to have a top training officer that did it. And it is my fault since I am in command."

"You have only been there 3 months; and have been busy trying to get a permanent replacement. So don't beat yourself up too much."

He looked at SOCOM and nodded. "Thanks, Boss. But that does not help my problem; because unless I am very wrong and I do not think I am, the rest of the Regiment might not be in much better shape."

SOCOM was not that surprised. "Well we have a real problem. The only officer that we both know can shape things up as they need to be cannot be taken away from her current command. Yet we badly need the Regiment back to where it belongs. We have been very lucky in the last year; outside of some of the Little Birds we have not deployed anyone. And the training exercises have been too vanilla as we now know."

"Well then we are going to have to rotate everyone through Scotland then. One month with her will shape up any unit if it is any good."

"And if it is not then you have a bigger problem than just not the right training."

"True. Well let's pull her over here to talk to her. Any idea when the Marines are going to start standing up their first Squadron?"

"The contractor has the parts to make at least 30 of them but it will take at least a couple months to do that; then probably 4 or so a month after that."

"So a year and a half. The Marines train their aviators pretty hard; not as hard as we do but not far off."

"So we need to talk to Colonel Parker."

Liz looked at Jim. "Have no idea what this is about. But I bet part of it has to do with what you found out. The upcoming training exercises with the Pols and Austrians are going to be pretty much what we did last year. So nothing new there. So you just have to follow the pattern."

"We are getting requests for another big one sometime this summer."

"Well I can talk to SOCOM about that; our training budget is fine for everything else we are planning but not a big one like that. The Spanish want us over for another one soon as well; plus the Italians. Just glad that they sent the 101st over to Kuwait for three months; that will take care of the middle east."

The 101st Aviation Brigade (part of it) had been sent to Kuwait to help train up the Gulf allies; since this was working with regular forces it had been decided that regular brigades would do fine. That was no problem for Liz; they had more than they wanted or needed already in that area of operations. The Pakistani's had requested a mission; and there was a chance they would get pulled in to do a mission with India as well, even though that was the 160th's area. Being even handed with the Indians had become of greater importance over the last few years; considering how much they had worked with the Pakistani's on things.

The Group Captain had been promoted to Air Vice Marshal, but was basically doing the same job. He was very good at it and unlike the US Military if the UK found someone doing a job very well they tended to leave him alone. He was now more than ever becoming the defacto first contact for any training missions with any other country no matter what the service due to his extensive contacts.

He was once again getting pushed for more training missions; the defense budget was still very tight; and not likely to ease much for at least another year. The demise of the EU and the Euro had actually helped the UK; they were in much better shape to whether the storm. Things were still sorting themselves out but the dire predictions of the Euro fanatics had proven as pretty much everything else they had ever predicted wrong. The countries of Europe actually were doing better than anyone had thought. The austere budgets had made a big difference; the cutting of bureaucrats and the slackers had invigorated industry; the onerous burden the Brussels machine had inflicted on them was gone. But it would take a few years to really become prosperous; though now that seemed much more likely. The Defense budget was not going to be cut anymore, which was a victory; but it would not expand all that much for at least another year. So units needed training but had no money. A problem all over western Europe except for France and Germany; the kicking out of the unemployed immigrants had eased the burden in France considerably; and the new young President was showing a real gift for getting things done. The retirement age had been brought up to 65; and the workweek was back to 40. The shock of the events of the previous year had awakened the old fighting spirit of France that had been dormant far too long. And Germany had brought the Mark back to become one of the strongest currencies in the World. Eastern Europe had done quite well; not being formally part of the Euro zone had definitely worked to their advantage and they were all doing better than Western Europe.

The three weak sisters; Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium were still recovering slowly. They had gone down the rabbit hole of cradle to grave farther than any other countries and they paid the highest price for that. Portugal was ok, Spain was improving; Italy had seemed to turn the corner. Austria and Switzerland had also been more or less immune. Finland and Sweden and Norway were lagging but doing better.

The new Air Vice Marshal looked at his aide. "I take it that the requests are increasing?"

"Yes, sir. Everyone is looking for another big exercise to point for."

"Well there is not money in the budget for this year; but I have gotten solid word that we will be in better shape next year."

"Well then, what about this year?"

The Air Vice Marshal sighed. "I will have to see what I can do."

He was reluctant to contact Colonel Parker; she had done more than her share to help last year. Virtually every regiment in the British Army had trained with her; that had been very helpful indeed. But he was very well aware that they could not keep putting off training. That could have deadly consequences in combat; and despite what many seemed to think the world had not become peaceful overnight. True it was calmer now than it had been in over 20 years, but only a Pollyanna thought it would continue. He was virtually certain that something would come up before long somewhere. Russia was starting to wake up after its bloodbath with its Mafia; and some of the former Russian republics were not the most stable. Iran was seemingly forever a worry. One could not forget Korea either. China was just now emerging from its massive disaster of the collapse of the Three Gorges Dam; and it was now having to spend more than ever to get pollution under control. But it was just a matter of time before it began to flex its muscles again. So this respite would not last long. The UK military had to be ready to shoulder its share of the burden. But they could not do that if they were not ready. Then he was unexpectedly called into a meeting with the Defense Secretary.

"Air Vice Marshal, we have just been informed of some major changes in the US Marines and that some of the effects of that will come this way. They are sacrificing one of their MEF's to gain something else. 4 full squadrons of Super Apache's. They intend to have them trained with your friend Colonel Parker in Scotland. They are coming over for a meeting tomorrow."

Liz got into DC only one hour after her 0800 departure according to the clock; but then when your flight only takes 6 hours and the time change gives back 5 that is what happens. She was lucky in that she was able to catch some sleep anyway. The fact that this meeting was in the Pentagon not with SOCOM at Campbell told her that it was something out of the ordinary; and that her meeting with SOCOM would almost certainly be just the first one. She went right from Andrews to the Pentagon and met SOCOM in his office there at 1000. Another hint had been that she was wearing class A's. Which meant big brass time. She deliberately wore her BDU's then changed just before going to his office.

The ceremony in Scotland scheduled for May for the 161st to get a Presidential Unit Citation and her to get her second DSC was going to be a very large affair and Liz was not looking forward to it. Her ribbons were going to get more additions. She had to admit it looked pretty impressive. So she was thinking when she went in the office SOCOM had when he was at the Pentagon. She was ushered right in and sat in front of his desk.

"I am willing to bet you have no idea why you are here."

Liz grinned. "If rumors have anything true to them, it has to be about me training the Marines to fly the Super Apache they are gunning for."

"That is only part of it. There is a lot more besides that. What have you heard about the Marines?"

"They are looking to dump their Harriers and replace them with Super Apache's; two of their squadrons which are the same as our battalions for each of the two MEF's they want to keep; they are sacrificing their third MEF to get them."

SOCOM nodded, not really surprised. "SO you pretty much guessed you would be designated as the training officer for them?"

Liz sighed. "That is what I figured. I was just worried about six months away from my command."

"Well the good news is that you are not going to them, they are coming to you one squadron at a time. The first one will be standing up in June. They have the parts to assemble the necessary number and will have them up and going in April. That is when they will probably start heading your way. The Marines started picking and choosing the pilots then stopped. Guess what?"

"You have got to be kidding?"

"Nope. You get to do it. Basically you get to run them through the mill first and then decide which ones are good enough then train them."

Liz blinked and then shook her head. "This is bizarre."

SOCOM then got serious. "No it is not. You are by far the most respected Apache Driver, let alone Super Apache driver around. It is just common sense on their part. But that is not all of it either."

Liz sighed and waited for the rest of the load to fall on her.

"You might not be aware that only a few weeks ago the acting 160th commander threw a no notice exercise at the Apache Battalion. They did not do well."

Liz shrugged. "So they come as well."

He grinned evilly. "That is still not all of it."

Liz closed her eyes the opened them. "What else is there?"

"The entire 160th will be coming over a battalion at a time to train. Since they have been unable to come up with a training officer good enough, you will be doing it all."

"shit."

One hour Later Liz followed SOCOM and the Aviation cum 160th chief who had just arrived to the main briefing room of the Secretary of Defense. Liz went to sit beside SOCOM with the Aviation Chief on her other side. The rest of the Joint Chiefs of Staff came in then all rose when SECDEF walked in. As they all took their seats Liz noticed that she was the only one in the room under the rank of general sitting at the table. All the aides and such were on chairs behind their chiefs.

SECDEF looked around and nodded. "Good. Everyone is here. This special meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will now come to order. Chairman, you may proceed."

"Yes Sir. To be brief, major changes were just approved by agreement with Congress and the White House. The Marines will be sacrificing a MEF; the one in Okinawa will be going to Hawaii; their ships will remain at Okinawa; that agreement was just reached with Japan. The California stationed MEF will go to Diego Garcia. The North Carolina MEF will be stood down. Attrition will take care of the excess personnel in two years. Those officers not needed will also be let go. The Marines have requested that the SAH-64 Super Apache be substituted for the F-35B originally meant to replace the Harrier. That has been approved. They will get 96; the price will be half of what the same number of F-35B's would have cost. The savings from the stand down of the MEF will cover all costs of these changes. Including the extra construction needed in Hawaii and in Diego Garcia."

Liz looked around the room. She wondered why a meeting was needed for this.

"Due to some problems with the 160th, the originally designated training of the Marine Super Apache Squadrons will now be the responsibility of the 161st . Also the fleet units operating with the Super Apache's will also train with them there. An agreement to temporarily station them at Glasgow during the approximate year and a half it will take to train all units has been reached with the UK MOD. They will also train with units of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines. Plus other units of the British Army. When we had our meeting with the MOD, they made a counter proposal when we informed them of our training plans. And after some discussion it was agreed to. This is the result."

Liz did not move as she considered the situation. Well she was not going to have to ask for more funds to train with the Brits; it was coming anyway. Along with just about the rest of the world. No one could not say she was going to be busy.

"That concludes the meeting. I would ask that SOCOM, the Commandant and the Chief of Naval Operations join me in my office."

The Aviation Chief and Liz followed SOCOM as he went to the SECDEF's office just down the hall. There was a meeting room just off of his office that they sat in. Liz was a little curious; she had only been in the Pentagon once before and never in the rarified atmosphere of the SECDEF's part.

He sat down and looked around.

"I wanted to make sure that there were no high level questions. This was very quickly arranged. Even by Colonel Parker's standards."

This got smiles all around; Liz was used to needling about the Cyprus exercise.

"Admiral Williams, since we wish to move quickly, what ships are you looking at using for these training exercises?"

"All 8 of the WASP class; and both America Class. We will be spreading out the Apache's so that we have half a squadron aboard every active ship. Sir, it has been discussed that the Super Apache squadrons be reduced from 24 to 12; that would allow one Squadron per ship."

SECDEF looked at the Commandant. "Your views, General Sampson?"

"Our aviation people are flexible about squadron size; and it does make sense. I see no reason we cannot go that route."

"How many ships at a time?"

"Sir we would prefer to go two at a time."

"That should work."

He then looked at SOCOM.

"I assume you filled Colonel Parker in on this?"

"Yes sir."

He then looked at the Commandant.

"The proposal as regards the pilots was a little out of the ordinary, General."

"Sir, it makes sense. This is an extremely sophisticated helicopter; much more than the latest Huey. I have no doubt that some will have trouble making the transition. We want to be up and running for at least one MEF in less than a year. The Harriers are just plain worn out; operational percentage is hovering at 75% despite all we can do. We do not have the time to bring the pilots along slowly. I have no doubt from her previous record that Colonel Parker can quickly weed them out. It is not like we do not have the volunteers; we already have two for each slot and more will come." He looked at Liz.

"Colonel, every pilot you get will have at least one year operational experience. No new nuggets. So if they cannot cut the mustard cut them."

Liz nodded. "Yes sir. My decision will be final?"

"Absolutely."

"I should have them capable in 90 days for each squadron- if you go for the 12 per squadron."

The other people in the room blinked at that. SOCOM looked at Liz. "You already have a training plan in mind?"

"Yes sir. I got information about this possibility about this a week ago; and began working on a plan. Figuring that the Marines would be using their Wasp and America Classes, I took a look at their specs. Knowing that the Marines wanted not only close ground support but an anti-air capability, I will use our own training program for that. We will give them at least 30 days flying before they will attempt any ship operations. We will be doing a fair amount of that over the water anyway; I believe 30 days will be enough for them to get used to flying from a ship; it will not be like regular carrier operations with catapults and hook wires. Much simpler. It will be good trying them in the waters of the Irish sea; it will be calm most of the time; when they get more experience we can take them north for tougher waters. I hope that their ground crews will be brought in soon; they can learn from mine then learn to do it on ships. Their graduation exercises will be to go up against my Apache's. I see no reason that 90 days cannot get it done with already experienced pilots."

Everyone in the room was impressed by this. SECDEF slowly nodded

"Very well then. No one here will argue with that kind of timeline. The word from the assembly plant is that they will have the first 24 ready to go this coming month; so they can be sent straight to Scotland." He looked at the Commandant.

"How soon can you have the first batch of pilot candidates there?"

"I see no reason we cannot have them there at the same time."

SECDEF looked at the Navy CNO. "That would mean that early in April they would need the first ships there."

"Sir, as long as the ports are ready the ships will be there."

"I see I will have to have a word with the MOD. I doubt they expected us to move this fast." He looked at the rest of them. "Well this went faster than I expected. But that is good. Any questions or comments?" Liz raised her hand. "Yes Colonel?"

She looked at the Commandant. "Sir, I would ask that all prospective pilots first pick up copies of the manual on the Apache; and can bone up on the flight systems and the cockpit. I want them familiar with that end of it when they arrive; I intend to have them up each personally to try them out before I approve them for further training."

The Commandant raised his eyebrows. "You intend to make it sink or swim?"

"Not quite sir; but I will be riding with them. I can usually tell pretty quickly if someone is going to make it or not."

"Then it will be as you requested."

They left the building and got in the limo to head to Andrews. Liz had requested they send her right back the same day. In the Limo the Aviation chief looked at Liz.

"We did not want to air our dirty laundry there though I am pretty sure it was known at that level. The Apache Battalion almost failed a no notice. I will be sending them to you in the next week for a month's refresher training. You might as well know that each Battalion of the 160th will be coming to you for a refresher over the next 4 months."

Liz sighed. "Why not? Everyone else in the world is coming."

Liz got back at just before 2000 that night and was exhausted; she had spent the whole flight back refining her ideas about training the Marines. As soon as the jet landed she went right to her quarters and Max was waiting for her with a nicely cooked meal which she proceeded to devour. The she sat with him for a while decompressing. Max being Max, realized that she just needed to be held and did just that. After a while she just tugged him to bed and once again he just held her.

"I can guess you got thrown another big fat challenge."

"Oh, yeah."

"Just how bad is it?"

"I get to train 8 Marine Squadrons of Super Apache's; and the 160th is coming one by one to train here; and there will be ships coming as well for the Marines to fly off of once I choose the ones that will complete the training."

"Sorry I asked."

The double jet lag then caught up to Liz and she conked out.

Max made sure the alarm was off and called the office to let them know that Liz would be a little late.

Liz slowly surfaced and blinked; she was alone in bed; but she could tell that it was light outside. She looked at the alarm clock and saw that it said 0845. She sank back realizing that Max must have turned it off. She had slept almost 11 hours. Taking a deep breath and moving slowly she got out of bed and hit the shower. She shuffled off to the kitchen and slowly got some coffee going. She took her time since she had not told the office she would be back until today anyway. She did not get into the office until 1000. Once there she called a meeting of her Battalion commanders. They were in there by 1030, knowing something was up. She went to the conference room where her 5 Battalion Commanders and Jim Harkness waited for her.

"OK, people, if you thought we were busy before you ain't seen nothing yet."

She then outlined what would be happening. They stared back at her in shock. A fully rested Liz was more amused by the situation then put out.

"Cheer up people, the good news is that for the next year and a half for all intents and purposes the sky is the limit as regards training costs. The money the Marines are saving will pay for everything. Those extra billets we were considering; well now we can build them. We will contact the company we had discussions with and have them start building immediately. The designs will be the same as what was already built, so there is no reason that in 90 days a new block cannot be up. That will house an extra 200 people and that will be about what we will need. That large training exercise we were looking at this summer will be covered; I think we should gun for September. We will be done with the 160th and hopefully the first two squadrons of the Marines at least; depending on how fast they send them to us. One thing: for the time being we are going to have to double up our bachelor enlisted and officers to free up enough space for all our visitors. Once the new block is done we will return to normal."

After leaving them to adjust to things Liz headed for her office; she knew that the Air Vice Marshal, her old friend the Group Captain, would be coming by. The Base was technically a RAF base and had a RAF Wing Commander who was the official liaison with the MOD, in theory running the base. In practice he played a lot of golf and had his small staff take care of the inevitable paperwork. So she was not surprised to find the Air Vice Marshal waiting for her.

"Well, did you get the full word?"

"I think I got all they knew; but since I know you just got back from the Pentagon you probably already have seen the changes we will not hear about for a while."

"True. In addition to the Marines they are sending one battalion of the 160th over hear each month to train them up."

He raised an eyebrow at that. She shrugged. He nodded.

"You mentioned a major training exercise this summer before you left. How has this changed things?"

"Well, we will have to move it back to September; but other than that nothing changes. Until the Marines are done I have a virtually unlimited training budget. The SECDEF specifically mentioned training with the SAS, Commandos, Para's, Royal Marines and 'assorted regiments'. Frankly I was thinking of pushing this to the limit and talking the Navy into sending some of the ships to the Med and doing another biggie in Cyprus and Turkey. Next month before the Marines and everyone else in the world comes rolling in we will get the Polish and Austrian training missions out of way. I have been kicking around the idea of talking to the Spanish about a big exercise there as a kind of Graduation ceremony for the first Marine Squadron. Depending on how many they are willing to put up with we could bring a fair number of British units to that operation as well. As a matter of fact if the Poles are willing we could bring some to that party as well. Then that big one in Cyprus and Turkey; and of course the Greeks want one too so we could rope them all in for a whole month of sun and fun."

The Air Vice Marshal contemplated this. That would satisfy all needs for certain for this year. That would be a massive operation down in the Aegean and around Cyprus, but using ships would actually make moving around easier. Certainly would be different even compared to the last years operation.

"Seems ambitious but I have learned that you thrive on that sort of thing. I will ask around and see what each thinks of this. I know the Spanish would be happy to have you back; the Poles as well. Since you can now transport almost two battalions at a time, and maybe bring some in by transport, the Poles if they are willing could have a very big party indeed."

Liz nodded. "Will get with them right away; I have about 30 days before things go nuts; so let's see if we can get that done before then. After the Marines get here; and the 160th; it will be hard to get away for anything else. April thru August we are going to be run ragged."

Liz called up her contact with the Poles and was transferred right away to General Sosabowski.

"Colonel Parker. Good to hear from you. I take it you wish to make the plans for this year's exercise?"

"Very much so, General. I have some regiments in the UK that wish to play. Last year you mentioned this. So what I would need to know is how many you can accommodate?"

"Well, I will have to see. I believe I can get an answer to you by tomorrow. When were you looking for this exercise?"

"Would it be possible to get it done in the next month?"

"That is possible. I will confirm that to you tomorrow."

"Thank you General."

The exercise with the Austrians was already confirmed for the next week; this time only the transport units would go. Liz had decided to let the senior Battalion commander, Major Young, run that exercise. Liz was just too busy and it was decided that there was no need to bring the Little Birds at all this time. The same with the Apache's.

Jim Harkness had been looking over the housing situation; luckily they had 100 slots that could be used by doubling people up that were available in the family housing area. The BEQ and BOQ and VIP housing areas could handle an extra 100 as well. It would be tight but they could just barely manage to accommodate the 160th and Marines at the same time; if the 160th left their crews behind. This would mean a lot of work for the crews of the 161st so Liz upon hearing this went to her Battalion Support Commander, Major Jack Dawson.

"So there it is. Your crews are going to be run ragged. If we had the housing for the support troops we could have them here. But we don't."

"And why can't we just put them in tents? It will be the summer, for what that is worth. So what if they have to rough it? It is only for 30 days or so?"

Liz thought about that; then pulled out her phone and keyed in a number.

"General? Liz Parker. Just wanted to ask you a question. We will not have enough housing here for the crews with all the Marines we will have plus each battalion of the 160th So the question I have; we can put up temporary housing; fancy tents. So you have to make the decision whether to keep your crews there and over work mine or send them to live in tents for a month."

"So my support troops have to rough it for a while. Do them good. No problem."

Liz smiled as she shut the phone off and looked at Jack. "Now we just have to get the tents."

"No problem. The Brits have a bundle of them we can borrow enough."

Liz was glad she could give her crews a break. So she could check off one problem.

Three days later Liz went to a meeting at the MOD to thrash things out in several areas. She smiled as she remembered General Sosabowski's call.

"Colonel Parker, my government informs me that we can commence this in 2 weeks. And let it last for a week. I have been given permission to allow 5000 British troops here for this exercise."

Liz had relayed that to Air Vice Marshal Bryce and he had then went out and gotten The Rifles, 3 Battalions; The Mercian Regiment, 2 Battalions; The Royal Welsh, 1 Battalion; The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, 1 Battalion. None had been able to do much training in the last year so they were very happy to get some. Liz had arranged with Ramstein to transport the Brits to the training area; and pick them up afterwards. They also were bringing the 40th Artillery Regiment and its 18 105MM howitzers.

For the next two weeks Liz worked at the necessary planning for all of this; fidgeting when most of her Regiment went to Austria but managing to keep from calling there. By the time she left for Poland things had been pretty much settled; frankly for her this exercise would almost be a rest period.

It turned out to be an enjoyable time. The weather was in the 60's and dry so that was good; General Sosabowski had worked hard and had prepared some interesting scenarios that had everyone hopping. Then Liz had thrown a couple of wrinkles in at the last minute that had everyone scrambling. The Commanding officer of the Rifles was the senior British officer present and ended up being alternately the aggressor or defender depending on the 5 scenarios that had been put together. Once again it was emphasized that flexibility was vital; and a couple of the Battalions did not get that and got thumped. The MOD had sent a couple of observers; and Liz arranged for Predator coverage of it all so it could be looked at later. When it was all over one of the MOD officers, a Colonel on the General staff, spoke to Liz.

"Colonel Parker, I see you once again work hard to keep everyone off balance."

"Keeps them light on their feet, doesn't it?"

"That is true. I did not know you could move those Artillery pieces with Black Hawks. That really caused some commotion."

"Found that out last year. They cannot take the heavier guns but 105's they can. Not many know that and that fooled that Polish Colonel and then the Mercian commander as well."

The two observers wrote up their report after watching the predator footage as well. It was not very complimentary to two of the Battalion commanders who seemed unable to react fast enough.

The Chief of the General Staff read the report and looked at his deputy.

"Hmm. I think we might have to watch those battalions. Cannot have slow thinkers in this Army."

"Yes sir. On the other hand just about everyone else did very well."

"True; so overall that is good. Considering the low level of training that we have had to deal with, I can say that I am satisfied. Make sure a thank you letter is sent to Knightress Parker. She works very hard at including us in her training."

The first Battalion of the 160th was due in on April 2; it was of course the Apache Battalion. Its commander, Major Robert Anderson, was very aware that his command was hanging by a thread. He knew the only thing that had saved him was the fact that he had been asking for more training. But if they did not show serious progress after a month getting worked over by Doberman Parker, he knew he was gone. He had to admit he was intimidated; he knew he was a good Apache Driver and believed he was a good Battalion commander; but he was now about to be put to the test by the best there was in both areas. He had a meeting with his pilots just before they got on the aircraft carrying their Apache's.

"OK, people. This is it. You all know we looked pretty poor during the inspection. Technically we passed the standards but that is Horse Shit. SOAR is always better than the standards even on a bad day. Now some of you were here when Doberman was the training officer so you know the route. I got in right after she left so I have not but I have heard chapter and verse since. Captain Edwards was here and now he will take over."

Captain Josh Edwards was commander of A company; he had been a Lt just about to get his platoon when he had come into the 160th and had been worked over by Doberman.

"Expect the unexpected. Get complacent and you are toast. Just when you think you have if figured out she will pull the rug out from under you. With her it is all about seeing how you react to the unexpected; how well you can get yourself out of a jam. It is going to be hell for the next 30 days; but if you make it and she passes you, you know you are now one of the best there is."

Anderson knew that his men were ashamed of the performance and determined to show that they belonged with the very best. But sometimes that is not enough; so he hoped that they just made it through without embarrassing themselves.

Liz stood on the tarmac as the first C-17 came rolling in carrying the 1st Battalion of the 160th SOAR. She had made it clear she would be on their ass from the moment they stepped off the plane to the moment the final exercise ended. She had had the time to carefully plan what she was going to do and she grinned in anticipation. It was that grin, reminding all of them of a famished wolf looking for a big meal that they saw as they got off the C-17.

"Major Anderson. I would like all pilots and copilots in the conference room as soon as they are all on the ground. You have from now until that moment to rest. There will be very little after that." And they found out that she spoke the literal truth.

"Let me make this perfectly clear in case you had not gotten it by now: you are here because you stank it up at your last inspection. If you do not pass this training mission with good marks you will be replaced and sent out of the 160th. There is no appeal; my word is final. The next 30 days your soul may belong to God but your ass is mine. I expect your aircraft to be in flying condition in 2 hours. Our first flight will take place at that time. The whole Battalion will be flying. I will be in my Apache and it will be up to you to keep up with me."

She took them out and ran them from that point until dark. Then took them up at 0600 the next morning and ran them all day; only stopping for them to refuel. Then she spent the next day tearing them apart in her critiques. Then after giving their crews time to do maintenance on the choppers; she woke them all at 0200 and had them do an emergency combat mission; she had the cloverley's out in the Irish Sea towing targets. Then she worked them all morning and critiqued them at night. She kept this up for 10 days until they had to rest the helicopters to allow maintenance to catch up.

Major Anderson managed to drag himself to the mess hall at 0630. She was generous on the morning of the 11th day allowing them to face her at 0730 instead of the usual 0630. He found a Zombie looking Captain Edwards nursing coffee and a half eaten breakfast and sat next to him.

"Was she this bad when you were there?"

"No. This is worse; but if you want the bad news it is not as bad as she can get when she really wants to be. This is just a case of seriously sustained nastiness that I have not seen before."

"OK. How do you think we are doing?"

"I have no idea; sometimes I think we are getting there then she pulls something and we look like dog food again."

Liz groaned as she got out of bed; this was a tough time for her as well. She was very glad that the Marines would not show up until May. She had found that she was going to have to really grind on the 160th people to get them up to the standards they should be at; they had gotten soft; no question about it. The good news was that they were excellent pilots. So she had hope for them. Now if just she could survive it.

Jim Harkness was talking to Majors Landon and Young; they watched as the 160th guys moved towards the conference room with all the enthusiasm of someone going in for root canals. Without Novocain.

"Is it my imagination or is she being kind of tough on them?"

Young thought about it. "Yeah, I think so. Not hugely; we have seen her when she is really on it. But then these guys just pretty much flunked a no notice. So she was going to be tough on them anyway."

Landon nodded. "Remember, guys, this was HER battalion for quite a while. She built it. So for it to fail is really to her something personal."

Harkness and Young both blinked; then slowly nodded. That had not occurred to them.

The acting 160th Head had tried to not call to find out what was going on but after 15 days had gone by he had to. He called her office at what was for them 1700 and got her secretary that told him that she was out flying with the 160th. He left a message asking her to call. She called him back; he looked at the clock and saw that it was almost 9PM.

"Colonel, my curiosity got the best of me. How are things going?"

"So far so good; just about to start the last batch of training; will be 10 days straight of it; I will give them tomorrow off to rest. Then right after that they will go in a fly off with my Battalion."

"I notice it is 2100 your time; when did you land?"

"About half an hour to go. I kept them up for 6 hours this afternoon and evening over the water making them maneuver."

"OK. I guess I will leave it to you then." After he hung up he wondered just what hell she was putting his people through.

Anderson watched as two of his pilots pulled a third pilot up after he fell asleep in the mess hall and slipped out of his chair. Not that he felt all that much better. The good news is the Doberman was giving them the next day off; the bad news was that the day after that was the fly off with her battalion. Graduation or Execution.

Liz groaned as Max gave her a massage; this period had been just as tough on her.

"So how are they doing?'

"Well. They just have to fly against my guys now."

"Who have been getting ready for this."

"True. But I am going to be throwing wrinkles in at the last minute; this is a test for my guys as well."

160th, break right; 161st break left; then maneuver by companies in standard ground attack; when I give the word, break. BREAK!"

Liz then had them both play follow the leader to her; then confront each other by maneuver. She started it at 0600 that morning and worked them until they were out of fuel which took 4 hours at full maneuvering. She constantly changed things; making them react then react to the reaction. As they all landed just after 1000, she told them she wanted them in the conference room at 1300 where she would tell them their status. She went to her quarters to shower and change out of her sweat soaked flight uniform. Then she relaxed and thought about things.

Major Anderson led his people into the conference room wishing it did not feel like they were trooping to the gallows. They sat down and waited.

Liz walked in at 1300 then began her critique as she asked questions and prodded and poked until 1500. Then she looked around at them.

"Good Job. You guys passed the nastiest training session I ever came up with."

Then walked out.

Major Anderson and the others sat for a moment. Just sat there. Then they as a group just let out a big breath. Then they began to grin and laugh and shake hands.

Liz then called a meeting of her Apache Battalion.

"You guys did OK. But you gotta remember not to get overconfident. They did very well against you. Frankly it was just about a tie; the only edge you had was that you were more used to me. Other than that it was just about even."

The 160th personnel got out of the aircraft at Campbell and looked around. No one actually got down and kissed the ground but it was close. Major Anderson walked up to the Aviation commander and his acting Commander and saluted.

"Sir, 1st Battalion reporting back from Hell, sir."

SOCOM called him up after they landed.

"So any requests for transfers?"

"None so far; but I have a hunch if I told them they would be going back again in a couple of months they would all put papers in. She really wrung them out and shook them up; but I could see it in the way they walked and talked; they know they are good again. So I guess it worked."

"When does the next battalion leave?"

"Next week."

"Just long enough to have all the horror stories sink in."

"Yes sir."

Major Anderson was buttonholed by the commander of 2nd Battalion, who would be going next.

"OK. No BS. Just how tough was it?"

"Our SERE was a walk in the park in comparison."

"Come on. No way."

"You will see." Then walked away. Leaving the 2nd Battalion commander worried. He talked to his company commanders the next day.

"OK. What have you heard?"

"Total Hell for 27 of 30 days. She gives 2 days off then the last day you are leaving. I am getting this from everyone. But you can tell those guys are stoked now. They are walking around with huge chips on their shoulders."

Liz actually took her family and visited London for a couple of days to rest and relax from the training period. She knew she had really pushed all of them to the limit. This was a good time to be with her family.

Major Tom Warner was the commander of the 2nd Battalion of the 161st. Liz had assigned him to get mean and nasty with the 2nd Battalion of the 160th; and to be prepared to be run through the ringer by Liz as well. His battalion's combination of Little Birds, Attack Little Birds, and Blackhawks was the most diverse of the regiment's battalions. So he was used to things being a little strange as a normal day to day event. The program was that for the first ten days he and his battalion people would run the 160th ragged. Then they would have a day off and then Liz would start on both of them. It would end with a flyoff between the two battalions.

The relief that the 2nd Battalion felt that they were not going to get bitten by Doberman until half way through the month soon left as they found that Tom Warner was trying to outdo Doberman. And not doing too badly at it.

The Marines started to arrive in the second week of the 2nd Battalions purgatory; and they got stories to share with the rest that showed up.

Liz wasted no time with the Marines. She met each one on one and put them through the mill. Grilling them then taking them to a simulator. Working them over there. Only then did she take them up in a Super Apache. With herself as pilot; then starting them out with basic maneuvers and the like. She gave each applicant a full day to convince her he was worthy. She got through the first 5 before she went out and started working over both regiments 2nd Battalion. Basically putting them through drills of pickups and reacting to changes in mission. She talked to the Scots and they agreed to get picked up and put down and also their equipment; it was not full training for them but their Colonel said it was something to do and fun to watch. The Attack Little birds would be chased by her in her apache and expected to get away; using their maneuverability. Which turned out harder for them then they thought; then a shoot off. The Little Birds found that the Para's that Liz had recruited gave them other problems.

"That Colonel is something else. She had us act like we were drunk to see how her people reacted. Then drugged. Then had them pick us up and change courses about 5 times before we were put down. They sure looked miserable. Not just the ones she is supposed to be training; her own as well."

The Fly off consisted of the Scotts randomly deciding where they wanted to be put down; changing their minds a couple of times each. Then just to test the ground crews as well, having them compete. She had also done this to her Apache crews as well. When she was done with them she smiled and said.

"Good Job. Have a nice day."

Then she went back to drilling and filling Marines. She was determined that none of them would be told until she was done with all of them. She had 250 to go through and realized that she could not spend a whole day with each. So she decided to spend an hour in her Apache after she had put them through her interview process then the Simulator. She began to use Jim and others to monitor what happened in the Simulator while she flew them around. The first group of 50 were done in two weeks after the 2nd Battalion was sent back. Liz had said that they had done well and so they were happy. Sam Young would be taking care of the 3rd Battalion.

It was the beginning of May and the President would be there on the 12th to give the unit the Presidential Unit Citation and Liz her second DSC. Liz deliberately forced herself to step back and take a day off; the Marines were quite Happy. The first batch had left and the second group of 50 were in. Luckily since the Marines were not all coming at once they had not had to put anyone in tents.

Liz got back to her office the next day and looked over the plans for the ceremony and the President being there. He would arrive on Air Force One and greet the unit; and then make the presentation. Then Fly out. He would only be there for one hour or so. Which suited Liz fine. The Secret Service were already looking around. In the middle of this her secretary buzzed her.

"Colonel, the Marine Deputy commandant for Aviation is on the line."

This surprised Liz so she was not sure what to expect. She picked up the phone and waited for the General.

"Colonel Parker, I have been told you have seen the first 50 applicants."

"That is correct General."

"How many pass?"

"So far sir 17."

"Less than one third."

"Yes sir. Most of them do not have the thinking speed. That is the usual problem. Why so many wash out at the 160th and 161st. This is not an extreme number from our experience."

The Deputy Commandant called the Commandant.

"Just talked to Colonel Parker. Out of the first 50, she approved 17. Said that is not surprising for Super Apache applicants for the SOAR. Most of them then are sent to the Black Hawks or others."

"If that keeps up, have we enough applicants?"

"Just barely."

"Well we told her that she was the sole voice on this. The good news is that they will truly be elite."

"From what I have heard about how she is working over not only the 160th but her own people, there is no doubt they will be if they can pass her muster."

"Colonel Parker should have been a Marine."

"Yes sir."

Liz looked around; the 161st was lined up in formation behind her as the President's plane landed. The honor guard was in position. They had brought in the band from the Scots Regiment to play Hail to the Chief which was a good touch. He came down the stairs and the ceremony began.

"For distinguished service to the United States and indeed all Mankind, I am honored to present to the 161st SOAR the Presidential Unit Citation. And to its commander, Colonel Elizabeth Parker I am equally honored to present the Distinguished Service Cross, for her leadership and example." He then pinned the medal to Liz and handed her the placard. Then he turned and signaled the plane and Liz was shocked to see her Mother come down the stairs. The President was smiling. Nancy was smiling fit to burst and then the President spoke.

"This is further appreciation for the service Colonel Parker has done for the United States. With congressional approval, I hereby promote her to Brigadier General, effective 12 May 2015." Then the President on one side and her mother on the other pinned stars to a dazed Elizabeth Parker's uniform.

The President got back on the plane not long after and left Liz trying to recover. Her mother told her that she had been called by the President on Liz's Birthday, which was May 5th, and told about the promotion. Her Congressman had quietly gotten it done and kept it all very quiet. These promotions were usually done in batches. This was a singular one off. The Congressman had sent Nancy a copy of the special act that made Liz a Brigadier General. Nancy would stay a few days then fly back on a plane sent by SOCOM, who had been in on all this.

As could be expected this made news. FOX and CNN had covered the President's trip and of course had shown the ceremony live. So it had come as a shock to everyone.

The Posse and Crew were at work, but they had made arrangements to tape it. Maria took time off from work to watch it live and was the only one of Liz's close friends to see it as it happened. She of course called Liz that night.

"Liz that was so funny; the look on your face was a trip!"

The media ate it right up; Liz had to admit she did look totally shocked; which of course she had been. There were many comments about how Liz was the youngest General the US Military had had since the Civil War. She had just turned 32. Several commentators mentioned that she was the first person to make general without any college or so called higher learning since the Second World War. And others mentioned that she would now have to attend the Command College for general officers; which was done before they got their promotions-usually. Others talked about how it seemed a sure thing that she would one day reach the highest levels of the US Military.

Liz that night as the Regiment had a party, told all of them that she really had to give them the next day off as she would be a piker if she didn't. That evening when they all got back to quarters Aliya looked at her mother.

"It is going to be strange to have a general as my mother."

The next day they just lounged around home with Nancy, talking and enjoying each other's company. Ted had wanted to come but right at the moment things were too busy where he was at work. The next day Nancy headed back; but before she got on the plane she smiled at Liz and hugged her.

"I am so proud of you honey, my daughter the General."

Back at SOCOM they had finally been able to find someone who looked like he could get the job done at the 160th and the Aviation Chief was returning to his position that he had held 8 months earlier. Both of them discussing the recent promotion of General Parker.

"Sir, while it has been understood for a while that her next posting would be here, are you sure you are going to be able to keep her?"

SOCOM shrugged. "Not anymore. The Pakistan mission really put her over the top. Like the chairman said it is going to be a case of whoever survives the knife fight will get her. Now for us the good news is that there really are not that many positions that warrant an officer of her record. And let's be honest here; yours really is not one of them. At least not to anyone outside of USSOCOM. Also the good news is that she is going nowhere until she finishes training up the Marines which will take at least another year. Probably more. Then she has to go to command college, which will really be funny. Them trying to teach her ANYTHING about command. The Joint Services Command would have killed for her; but of course since that command is about to go away that takes care of them."

"And since she will be working with the Navy on the training of the Super Apache's for shipboard operations, she punches her tickets for joint operations. She has worked with other countries on both combat and non-combat so that ticket is punched. Frankly she goes to Command College and there is nothing else required she has got to do to go further up the ladder."

"So from this point on there is nothing she HAS to do."

"So whoever wants her is going to have to justify why and not be able to use ticket punching as the excuse."

"Exactly. And as long as her congressman is around no one is going to be able to try and send her to a hole. Of course now anyone trying to do that will get fried anyway."

"Still some will claim she has to do time inside the Pentagon."

"Well, that one is valid. You do need to know once you become a general how the puzzle palace works."

"Or actually doesn't work."

"I cannot argue with such a visionary truth."

"To be serious you know they are talking about bringing back the RDF."

"It is interesting since they claim it never went away."

"No it became CENTCOM. But now there is a movement afoot to try and make it live again as a separate force from all services."

"In this day of austere budgets good luck to them."

"I guess."

SOCOM thought about it for a while and decided that maybe he needed to sniff around himself on that. So he began to call around and was somewhat surprised to find that there was indeed more fire then just smoke to this. Some of the more influential members of Congress were looking at it; and some former senior military types were pushing it as well. SOCOM really did not see the point. They had forces earmarked to quickly respond. They had both SOAR's; and USSOCOM; the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions both had brigades that were kept on quick alert. The Air Force by its nature was fast to move. The Navy was the only ones that did not and once again by their nature it was not logical to have them even try to be. They had light troops and lots of air assets to respond; and they could always hit with missiles or bombs when that was needed. There was NO way to get heavy forces anywhere fast; even the US could not afford the dedicated air transport assets that would be required. Just to move one heavy armored brigade to a place would require most of the US Military's transports. This was logical; so what was behind all of this?

He found the answer a few days later; and the culprits were ones that surprised him: the US NAVY. They planned it this way: Build it around three groups of ships; 2 helicopter carriers and 2 LSDs/LSA's; plus several fast roll on roll off ships now in the mothball fleet. They would sail around the Pacific, the med and northern Atlantic; and the Indian ocean. Always ready to launch and attack. With the troops and tanks, VTOL's and attack and transport choppers to basically put a Brigade anywhere likely within 24 hours of getting close. They were arguing that the assets were already available; just not in the right places. The PrePo ships took days to get anywhere at best and more likely a couple of weeks. Air transports would take days to gather then get there. They wanted to take the 161st and leave a reduced 160th to take care of SOCOM; and with that regiment bolstered by two more battalions of Super Apache's have three strike forces within 48 hrs of putting tanks and heavy forces plus lots of other forces anywhere likely to be needed. They would have a battalion of Abrams; and a battalion of Bradley's and Strykers; and two battalions of infantry. They were making the argument that the Marine Super Apache's would get the job done and that the Marine MEF's should be used for this instead. It amazed SOCOM that they had gotten this much backing. The big problem SOCOM saw was that all these forces had to spend so much time ship bound. Which begs the questions how to keep them trained and ready to go? And you would need equal troops on shore to rotate out. Say 6 months or 4 months on and so on. Which would be hell on the families of the troops and crews. SOCOM shook his head. Dumb idea. They had as far as he was concerned the best that could be done now; without really wringing out the troops, crews and families involved.

Liz's congressman had been enlisted in this process; he was dubious but willing to listen. SOCOM talked to him and pointed out the problems.

The Congressman respected SOCOM, but had to consider that he was also protecting his territory. This was to be expected; it was part of the way things were done. So he called someone he knew would be straight with him.

"General, your congressman is on the phone."

"Congressman, what is going on?"

"I don't know if you have heard, but there are some members in congress pushing a new type of RDF. It would basically be three groups of ships with a brigade of heavy forces plus helicopter carriers. They would have F-35B's and Super Apache's and lots of transport helicopters. Basically it would be the three Marine MEF's only the troops would be on ship all the time moving around ready to respond. They would take your 161st as well plus some more transport choppers from the 160th. Their argument is the ships are here now; they have the troops; the F-35B's are ready and the Super Apaches are not far off. And they would call it a joint force since everyone but the Air Force would be involved. They would have one steaming around the Mediterranean; one in the Northern Pacific and One in the Indian Ocean. Their claim is to be able to in 48 hours put a heavy brigade with heavy support on the ground anywhere."

Liz sat back and thought for a bit. She could see the positives; but also the negatives.

"They would frankly need three times the personnel to man this; 4 months on and 8 months off is the most you can do and keep good people; the strain on families is just too much. So you would also need to have two crews or more; frankly three crews for the ships. Like they did with the Missile subs. So the manpower needs would be huge to keep it up. The Marines have the people if they used most of the corps; but it would be hell getting that many pilots and copilots qualified and then keep them qualified. Sir, this just would not give us more than we have now without it in the end costing more. The only edge this gives us is putting tanks and heavy forces on the ground sooner. With the exception of Desert Shield, when was the last time that was needed? In the last 25 years? No sir, I do not think it is a good deal."

The Congressman nodded; SOCOM had said some of the same things; but she had put it in the way that really mattered in Washington: Cost benefit. To do it right would in the end cost more than what they had now and the benefit was historically unlikely. And that is what mattered.

"Thank you General, how are things going there?"

"The next batch of Marines for evaluation is due in tomorrow; and the next battalion of the 160th comes in next week. So I am busy."

"Well good luck. I think I can step on this thing now before it goes any further."

And he did. He knew how to talk to people and his reference to General Parker sealed it for most of them.

"So the Congressman shut it down. I was worried that would actually get somewhere."

"I would have thought you would have loved it; the Marines would have had most of that pie."

"I did not believe it gave us more than what we have now in a way that really mattered; and the point about needing three of each to keep one going was dead on. The training costs would have been horrendous. I kept my mouth shut because the CNO and Commandant bought off on it."

Liz was just beginning to get used to being called General as the next batch of the 160th and Marines showed up. She had refined the process with the marines down to half an hour interview; half an hour in the simulator and half an hour in the air in the Super Apache. She would do the interview and then the simulator for 5 of them each day in the morning; then spend the afternoon flying with them and seeing what they had. She knew to keep it all unpredictable because they would talk to each other and she would not let any of them get an edge. She was very fair; she gave each one an equal shot; even when she was pretty sure after the interview if one was not going to make it. She was glad she did because a few did not do well in the first two parts but showed very good skills in the cockpit. By far the most of them were eliminated in the cockpit as things that could be hidden in the simulator showed up when they had the stick in their hands.

The Deputy Commandant for Aviation had opened up these slots to all Marine Aviators; active reserve and NG. If a reserve or NG made it they would be transferred to active duty. He had known that there would be no way that he would get the quality force he needed if he kept it to active only. Liz got 30 done a week now by working full time on this; 6 days a week. So by the end of the second week of the 160th 3rd Battalion being in, she had gotten the next 50 Marines done. 18 made it this time. So now she had 35 of 96 slots filled. Per the Deputy Commandants request, she was making up a second list of those that came very close to making the cut. They would be needed due to attrition. So far she had 6 on that list.

Liz was glad to get away from that process to start working over both Regiments 3rd Battalions. Sam Young had done a great job of messing with the minds of the 160th guys; so Liz had a fairly straightforward job of finding out how flexible and fast to think they were. This group was very vanilla; not great but no real weaknesses. She worked them mercilessly and then in the flyoff brought in the Royal Marines who proceeded to really act rowdy and demanding and basically push the pilots and commanders to the limits with all sorts of things; and the crews were pushed to the max as well. But in the end both Battalions acquitted themselves well. Liz gave them her usual good job; you passed and then went after the next group of Marine pilots.

This group had some gray beards in it; NG and reserves who were in their 40's. Liz had no compunction about driving them just as hard; but found that they reacted better than many of the younger active pilots. Experience did help; but Liz bore down on the flight portions of the exam and pushed them really hard. The two weeks went by and out of this group of 50 she got 20, including 3 gray beards. She added 4 more to her second list; making it 55 and 10.

Then because of the way things worked out Liz had what was to her right now an off week. She was able to catch up on some paperwork and the like. And spend time with her family. With a day to go before the last Battalion of the 160th showed up and the next batch of Marines, she was checking on some things when she came across some notes she had written to herself when she was just about to make the move to Scotland, over a year and a half ago. She looked at one in particular and then made a call.

"That is reasonable. So you are decided?"

"Yes. Things are up and running well and I no longer will feel like I am dodging responsibility."

"OK. Should be able to get this done fairly quickly. He will be in the zone?"

"Yes. And he deserves it."

The next Monday night, Liz called for a Regimental meeting first thing Tuesday morning, after she had gotten a phone call telling her it was a go. It was a good day for Mid June, almost 50 degrees at 0800 that morning. She gave a quick talk to the Regiment, then signaled Jim to step up with her; he did not notice his wife slip in behind him.

"You all know Jim Harkness is one of the people who keep this place going. All too often support does not get the attention it deserves. Without the crews, our fancy choppers are very large paper weights. Well it is time he got some recognition for his work for the last 2 years. Lt Colonel James Harkness, it gives me great pleasure indeed to inform you that the Promotion Board has seen fit to do the right thing and make you a full Colonel."

Then she and his wife took off his silver oak leafs and replaced them with the eagles that Liz had once worn.

"COLONEL Harkness, I think these eagles gave me some luck; I hope they bring some to you as well. Congratulations."

But as it always seemed just when things are going well something comes along to remind you that the world is not always going to play nice.

The last battalion of the 160th was over to start their rotation through Dog Pound hell as it was beginning to be called. Liz was particularly interested in this because her 4th Battalion was newer than the others; and she was not yet totally sure of her Battalion commander, Major Rick Stimson. He had done well in the Pakistan mission, but had not really been tested otherwise. It was a case of the fact that he had not really been put through the mill as much as the others. He had missed the Cyprus and Turkish training mission, but had shown OK in all the others. She wanted to put him through the wringer so she could be sure that she could depend on him.

The next batch of Marines were in and Liz worked them over; and then she watched some as Rick did his thing pushing the 4th Battalion of the 160th. So far so good. But as the first week wore on Liz began to get some bad feelings. She had Jim watching the 4th and he was a little worried as well; they got together that Friday night after the 5th day and talked about it.

"He is favoring A company."

"I kind of thought so but was not really sure. Tell me."

"Two times this week he gave either C company the harder job; and they really belonged to his Black Hawks. Pushed the 160th guys on their Black Hawk Company."

Liz sighed. This was not good. "OK. Now why is he giving favorite treatment to A company?"

Jim was quiet and Liz looked at him. "A company, its commander, is his best friend. I think, not quite sure, that he thinks that he has to carry him."

"Does he?"

"No. Captain Ames is quite solid."

Liz contemplated this. You picked who could do it best and dot it right; that is how you commanded. Playing favorites was just bad.

"OK, they are going to be going over water tomorrow; I want you to ride with him to watch. And do this."

The next day in midafternoon of an over the water exercise, Jim suddenly orders Major Stimson to break off someone and land on the beach as a sudden pickup. The beach is not very level and would be a tough landing. The appropriate choice was the Black Hawks of his company A. Chinooks were too big.

"C Company, land and secure."

Stimson commanded B company; Jim watched as the first Chinook started to try and land; and was going to call it off when the Chinook sat down and then just slumped a little.

"Mail Carrier Lead, I have damage."

Liz looked at Jim. "I should have acted faster."

"Jim, you are not an aviator. The pilot thought it was a little dangerous and found out what can happen when you get over confident. It is not too bad as regards the Chinook. No one was injured and the damage was not serious. But the real point is Rick. This was a case of serious misjudgment or worse. So we are going to grill him."

Liz and Jim faced Rick alone in her office.

"Major Stimson, why did you order a Chinook into an area that was best suited for a Black Hawk?"

"General, I thought it was safe enough."

"That is not what I asked. I asked why not the safest option which was a Black Hawk."

"Sir, in my judgment it was just as safe for a Chinook."

Liz and Jim looked at each other for a long time and Liz just nodded slightly.

The next day Liz brought Rick in and informed him that he was being transferred out of the 161st. She told him straight up what had been observed and that she did not trust his judgment. She then promoted his C company commander to the Battalion command and moved up his #2 in first platoon to platoon commander and his second platoon commander took over the company. She had liked what she had seen of C Company and she really had no one else with enough experience. Liz then put off the rest of the training for a few days to let the new Battalion Commander get used to things. Then took over the rest of the training herself, pushing everyone hard. Captain Ames had come in to talk to her.

"General, I kept telling him that we were fine; green but fine."

"It is not your fault, Captain. He made errors of judgment and that is why he is no longer with us."

The next week things seemed to be going well when on the Thursday, with just 8 days to go, they got a hairy situation.

Liz had just gotten back from flying with the last of the days Marine candidates when she noticed things seemed to be going on. Then she was informed that a Black Hawk had shredded its transmission and had by the grace of god landed on one of the Cloverley's. They were going to get one of the Chinooks to lift it off.

Liz went into operations and said one word. "Report."

Major Young was in the room. "General, a Black Hawk from the 160th's A company shredded its transmission; and he managed to get it down on the cloverley."

"Anyone injured?"

"He ordered everyone out to jump in the sea before he put it down. They are wet but the other cloverley picked them up."

In two hours they had the Black Hawk back and were looking it over. Shredding a transmission was not a usual situation; very rare. And usually there was plenty of warning. She immediately went in to talk to the pilot, a WO3 named Alex Jones.

"Sir my copilot noticed the temperature starting to rise; and I informed my Battalion commander and started to head to shore; making sure I was passing close to one of the rescue ships. I was about 10 miles from land when we could start hearing the transmission starting to go. I headed right for the nearest ship and about 500 yds away I ordered my crew to jump; I was only at about 40 feet. The transmission let go just as I was about to set down. I landed with a bit of a thump but otherwise ok."

They were already pulling the wrecked tranny from the Black Hawk and were looking at the black box data. The crew chief was shaking his head when Liz asked him what he thought.

"General, I just reworked that transmission. There is no way this should have happened. It looks like two main gears started to shred and that finally snapped the shaft. They started to shred and that raised the temperature as the oil could not flow and it happened in about 8 minutes."

"Contact the company. As of this moment you are standing down. I will have one of the other crews examine this."

Liz sighed as she sat in her office. Jim came in with fresh coffee which she drank about half in one go.

"Well, what you said about having those boats has come true. We just paid for them for the next 20 years."

"I guess. But I want to know what happened; either there were bad parts or that Crew messed up."

"Jones flat out says he has a great crew and crew chief."

"Pilots will do that anyway."

"Maybe but he is backing his crew chief."

"We shall see. I want those parts checked carefully."

Jack Dawson, her Battalion Maintenance commander came in at 2100 just as Liz was thinking about heading to her quarters. He had some paperwork with him.

"Those two gears were bad. Counterfeit. Below grade workmanship and material."

Liz blinked. "Counterfeit or the contractor cutting corners?"

"Counterfeit I am willing to bet. This company has been getting us parts for years. Never had a problem before."

"Contact Army Safety. There could be more of this batch out there."

As it turned out the company had sub contracted those parts out; and the subcontractor had gone cheap. It would be sorted out but for the time being all Black Hawks that had any parts from that subcontractor were grounded and checked. This would take two weeks to clear up and would result in a curtailment of operations. Liz had spare parts looked over and two black hawks cannibalized to ensure they could finish the training mission and get the 160th people back home.

Liz as soon as she could went back to working the Marines. It was now the beginning of July and she wanted them all done in the next few weeks. She and her command needed some rest in August to prepare for the September event. She was glad the decision to start training had to be pushed back as regards the Marines; she had been hard core about the evaluation process. But the navy was pushing the ships over for the training exercise. They would train on Cyprus with the Brits; and then on Turkey with the Turks and then in Greece with the Greeks. 3 full weeks of training with a week in each would really stretch everyone. The same cast of characters mostly, but the 19th and 52nd Brigades would not be coming this year; while the Commandos, SBS, SAS, Para's and Royal Marines would be. In addition the 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards; 1st Battalion Irish Guards; The Welsh Guards; 2nd Battalion Royal Anglian; 1st and 2nd Battalions Duke of Lancaster's; 1st and 2nd Battalions of the Yorkshire. And this time they would be bringing both the Commando and Parachute Artillery Batteries. Just to make it more interesting the US Navy had offered both the America and the Columbia for operations down there. Which would give them a chance to operate Super Apache's from there and learn things. Then they added two of the older Tarawa class ships; and Liz then decided to have a big meeting of all concerned in London at the MOD.

So a week later Liz sat in the center seat again and on her right was a US Navy Rear Admiral and on her left a British Army Major General. And there was a Turkish Major General and a Greek Major general (on opposite sides of course). Air Vice Marshal Bryce, the Royal Commando commander a Brigadier of the Royal Marines. And then the other unit commanders down the sides. It was a rather full table. Once again Liz took the floor.

"OK. This particular training operation is beginning to look like it will be an annual thing. And it is growing. This time the US Navy will have 4 LHA's. After some careful looking we figure we can squeeze all the UK troops and equipment on the ships; we will fly them to Cyprus and load the ships; then all strikes will come from the ships; then there will be movement from shore. The ships will be there for the first week and we will use them up. These operations will be based on Cyprus. Then we will spend the next week in Greece and the third week in Turkey. This way we will not need to set up camp on Cyprus. Now as regards the command situation. We will be splitting the units as such: the SAS on one side; the SBS on the other; Para's on one side and Commandos on the other. We will split up the other units so as to make equal sides for the Cyprus operation. Then on moving to Greece all British units will be under Major General Brooke. The Greek commandos and regular army units will take turns with the UK forces playing aggressor and defender. Then when we go to Turkey the same. I want to emphasize that just like last year the plans will be vague and general; it will be up to the individual commanders to get it done. These operations are designed to test the regimental and battalion commanders on all sides. Now as regards the air components; both the Greek and Turkish air forces want to play; but they are going to have to get past my Apache's and Attack Little Birds; so we will be having our own private war. While the rest of you are also going at it. There has been curiosity as regards the anti air capability of the Apache and we will test that here. So are there any questions?"

Needless to say there were a few but not that many. There had been so much talk about the No Name operation last year that everyone was eager to see if it could be done again.

"Oh. And regards the name of this year's operation. It is called Little Interruption."

Liz found it a little harder to push the keep it simple stupid (KISS) concept this time around but she got support from all those who had been there the previous year. So after some discussion it was agreed to keep it the same way. She was a little amused at how uncomfortable some of the higher ups were about not having a rigidly planned and scripted training operation. She did notice that she was not getting much argument when she pushed hard for something; she wondered if it was the fact that she was now a general or due to her reputation, or a combination of both. At least it came in handy at the moment.

The ships would add a whole new component to the operation and Liz wanted to make sure that was understood by all, herself included. So she went right to the horse's mouth.

"Admiral, how do you propose to use your ships in this operation?"

"General, the purpose of those ships is to bring the strike force close enough to reach their target but far enough away to make striking them harder; and to as much as possible allow the element of surprise."

"Well, then, we need to plan to use them that way as much as possible. The rest of the time they will be the base for operations of the helicopters and other support craft. The question is, and I think we should do this, is to decide whether to leave the troops on ships and go back and forth to the various target areas or move them from one target area to the next."

It was agreed since the ships would only be there for the first week so they needed to make maximum use of them. The Super Apache's would be expected to be the CAP. That would be a new thing and something Liz knew they needed some work on.

This time also the helicopters , once the ships were gone, would move from Cyprus to Greece to Turkey; setting up for full operations at each point. The crews and maintenance would have to move and work from tents.

Liz had proposed, and it had been accepted, that the desalination plants would move from place to place; they would be expected to move and set up quickly just like if this was the real thing. And while the areas were basically decided on, the choice of where they would set up would be a last minute decision. Once again just as if this was the real thing. Realism is what Liz pushed all the time.

"Some here are uncomfortable with the idea of not planning everything down to the finest detail. I ask those that, outside of the opening campaigns of any war, when were real military operations that carefully planned? Once the war began, you had to react and adjust on the fly. Operation Overlord is the only mid or late war operation I have ever heard of that took over a year to plan. Everything else took months at most. So those that think we need to take six months to get a training exercise done right are putting themselves against the history of modern war. Now one could make the point that waiting until 6 weeks before to really get something together is a little bit much but once again I argue why not? Training exercises are supposed to stretch you and make you think."

No one there argued with her and as far as she was concerned that was that. She did have a short meeting with the senior officers right after; the Admiral and the Generals. That turned into a more of a meet and greet than anything else.

Liz finished up the last of the Marine interviews by the end of July; and had 96 on the main list and 18 on the second list. It had been decided that she would start training them in August; their Super Apache's had arrived for the first 2 squadrons and Liz wanted to get started.

"OK. You are here to learn how to fly the Super Apache. You have flown in one and gone through a short exercise in a simulator. You have had time to get familiar with the systems and the cockpit, you SHOULD be very familiar with the manual. We will start you out on the simulator; and I do not think I have to tell you that I will be tough."

Liz had 32 days until they left for the exercise and she spent the great majority of those days working the first group of Marine pilots and copilots over hard. The copilots had been chosen differently; Liz had not been part of that. She saw right away that some would not make it; but kept quiet about it. There was a full colonel of Marines in attendance who was supposed to be actually in charge of them; Liz had enough to do without that as well. They had talked when he had gotten in.

"Colonel Martin, how do you feel about babysitting?"

"General, I follow orders. Not the greatest duty but it is needed."

"No argument there. Glad I do not have to be responsible for them in addition to everything else. You are almost certainly going to have to toss some of the copilots. Frankly I am surprised at how loosely they screened them."

"So am I. General, just let me know when one screws up and I will have his butt out of here ASAP. I have already informed the Deputy Commandant that whoever was in charge of screening copilots did a lousy job."

They were to find out that those in charge of this had frankly given it short shrift; cursory at best interviews and perusal of their records. Of course those officers soon found themselves no longer part of the Marine Corps soon after the results became clear, but that did not help Liz or the Colonel.

Liz worked the pilots and copilots equally hard; but the copilots had not expected it. In the first two weeks she washed out or kicked out 15 copilots; and 10 others requested reassignment.

"How did this happen?"

"Sir, it was my office that screwed up. The orders were clear but the training command chose to interpret them very liberally as regards the quality of copilots chosen."

"That is to put it mildly. General Parker has had to kick out 15 and 10 have quit. That is out of a first group of 50. Colonel Martin has informed me that he expects no more than 20% of them to make it. That is completely unacceptable and a total embarrassment to the Corps. I want those responsible for choosing them out of the Corps one way or another; if they fight it get court-martials scheduled."

"Yes sir."

Liz was glad that she had made Jim Base Commander; that took some of the paperwork and other crap off of her desk. The latest mess with the copilots had been a real pain in the butt. The pilots were doing well, as she expected. No real problems there. Now that the worst of the copilots were gone that had settled down some. She still did not think that more than a dozen at most of those that remained would qualify.

The Deputy Commandant for Aviation, well aware that he was hanging by his fingernails, had worked over the head of training and had ordered him to personally vet the next batch of Copilots.

By the time it they were ready to leave for Cyprus, Liz had weeded the copilots down to 14. None of the first 24 pilots were gone. She then decided to take them with her, since there was no reason to have them doing nothing for 3 weeks. The whole Regiment was going. So it would have been a ghost town anyway. Then she also decided to take their Super Apache's as well and have them work into the training. She would have to be careful but she figured she could at least get some work done with them.

They packed up all their choppers and headed south; the Air Force was collecting the Brits and would fly them straight to Cyprus. The ships were already on location so the first day would consist of loading them.

Liz had never been aboard a ship of any real size so the America, the flagship of Task Group 34.1 was interesting. It had only been in service for 3 years; the Columbia had only been in service for less than one. They were about the same size as the Essex class WW2 carriers; but were extremely modern. They had no catapults or arresting gear; VTOL and helicopters were the name of the game. Usually they had some V-22's but not this trip. They did have some F-35B's and Liz was very curious about them.

Colonel Martin gathered the pilots and copilots and laid down the law.

"There is already a fair number of people watching you; waiting for you to screw up. So think about that. These are the same ships you will be serving in when you become operational; so use this time to get familiar with them. Watch and learn. The General will be working with you when she has the time; expect a sudden call and you better be ready."

Liz stood on the bridge of the USS America and looked around. They had loaded everyone aboard the ships and were now heading back down the Mediterranean; the idea was to simulate an attack; get to position then launch. The first groups out will be to set up perimeters and defenses; then the next groups out would be attacking them. Outside of a general idea no one knew who was going to do what; recon would be required. The Little Birds would be doing that; over watched by Attack Little Birds; the Super Apache's would be the CAP; the F-35B's would be high CAP.

Liz had changed things a little; she had the 161st and the British Helicopters that had come along fly all the defenders to Cyprus and then the ships sailed out of sight before they started moving them to positions only they knew about. Liz had ordered all crews to not tell anyone where they had put the defending forces. That would force real recon and the commanders to plan on the fly the following morning.

At 0530 the following morning, the British Major General commanding the attacking forces ordered recon of Cyprus. The Little Birds, Attack Little Birds and Apache's took off by 0600, just before dawn. The ships were 50 miles from Cyprus. The F-35B's took off 30 minutes later and took over the high altitude CAP; the Apaches kept at about 5000; while the Attack Little Birds escorted the Little Birds in for recon. At 0700 it was reported that Greek air craft were closing; and the F-35B's went out to meet them. The Greeks sent their F-16's high and low; the Super Apache's got to shore and stayed low; in a melee lasting almost 20 minutes, the 32 attacking Greek F-16's were shredded. They were astonished by being taken out by the Super Apache's waiting in the weeds. They were unable to find them and were targeted by Sidewinder and AMMRAM's. 24 F-16's were considered downed; against 5 F-35B's and no Super Apache's.

The Little Birds bored in and located the defending forces. The General sent out the response forces appropriately. And that was how it went day to day; the Greeks trying to figure out how to get through the CAP but usually not succeeding. The ground maneuvers and assault and counter assault got very creative. They had to send back to the UK for more 105 blank ammunition as the gunners used more than thought.

Moving everyone to the staging area on the Greek coast took another full day; but they started going at it the next morning. And there were two night assaults as well. They had tried to see what each regiment wanted to work on and try and use them in that way. They had mostly succeeded.

By the end of the third week everyone was getting tired; but they kept at it. The General pointing out that in real combat they would be getting tired as well.

Liz took every opportunity she could find to work with the Marines; and she was usually able to scare up time each day. She had taken a back seat to things mostly, only occasionally injecting some last minute change to mess up carefully laid plans. So she spent a fair amount of time taking the Marine Apache's around; they only took up 12 at a time and rotated the crews; she took them off the ship and then up and around; taking it fairly easy at first to allow them to get familiar with the Super Apache. Two of the copilots she had taken along showed problems and she sent them back to the States.

The Turks proved even more tricky and it was actually fun to watch; the SBS and SAS got caught out a couple of times falling into traps; and the Para's almost did an Alamo. But the Royal Marines did capture his command post on a night raid so it mostly evened out. Before they left everyone agreed it had been a very worthwhile exercise.

Getting back to Scotland Liz gave everyone the day after arrival off to be with their families and rest. She went home and just laid around watching her family. Aliya was blossoming into a beautiful woman inside and out; and James was becoming a real boys boy. They seemed happy and that was what was really important. She snuggled with Max that night.

"They seem happy. How about you?"

"I got them and you; I would be a real miserable bastard to not be happy."

Liz hit the ground running the next day, bringing the Marines in for more simulator work while having a critique for the training mission. She had really very little to gripe about.

Meanwhile interest in the results of Little Interruption were looked over in several areas. TRADOC had requested Predator footage and a written record and proceeded to go over all of it with a fine tooth comb. Marine Aviation was very interested in the overall anti air operation; disappointed that the F-35B's did not do better but astonished at how well the Super Apache's did. That part began to get a lot of attention. The Air Force was not ready to believe that a helicopter of any kind could really ambush a competently led attack of modern jets; and said so. Boeing then upped the ante by starting to advertise the Super Apache as being able to give moderate protection to ground forces from air attack; they were careful not to boast too much but the message was there. That got some flyboys really irritated. They had resented for years the way many in the US Army and Marine Corps relied on helicopters for ground support; which was kind of interesting considering how often they had tried to get rid of the A-10. This began to percolate up the ladder and the Deputy Commandant for Aviation added gasoline to the fire by casually mentioning in an article that the Marines felt there was no reason that the F-35B's and Super Apache's could not afford any attack group sufficient protection from anything except a major air attack. Considering the Marines were known to not be all that happy with the current F-35B package that seemed to be saying that anything getting past them would be taken care of by the Super Apache's.

While Liz was working away at the Marines and having them do more and more difficult operations with the Super Apache's, this debate began to grow teeth and legs.

"Are you just tweaking the Air Force with those comments or do you really mean them?"

"Sir, the preliminary indications are that just about any strike package short of a NATO one would have a hard time penetrating against a combined F-35 and Super Apache CAP."

The Commandant raised an eyebrow.

"They are that good?"

"Sir, remember that the Longbow radar was very good; and this is the next generation. The heat source suppression on the Super Apache is very good; so getting a long range lock with a heat seeker is difficult. The radar return is not that great; so that also helps to prevent a long range lock with a radar seeker. The ECM and ECCM package is the same as the F-22 has. Same with the flare and chaff system. One of the criteria's of the Super Apache was an increased ability to take on fixed wing aircraft in combat. Now that they can carry 2 Sidewinder and 2 AMRAMM, and since they operate in usually no less than Company strength, their ability to respond and survive a fixed wing attack is not small."

"You do know that now the Air Force is going to demand some real exercises."

"I hope they do. If we do even halfway decently they still lose overall."

The Commandant nodded. That was true; the Air Force had nothing to gain and everything to lose by pushing this.

But apparently cooler heads did not prevail and at a Meeting of the Joint Chiefs the Air Force Chief of Staff floated an exercise proposal. Since at the moment only the 160th and 161st operated them, it was they who would have to carry the fight though it was clearly aimed at the Marines. The CNO, a pilot himself, also showed interest. No real surprise considering how much the navy had invested in their carriers. Being as it had been mentioned at an official meeting, it was considered a nearly formal request and thus things began to happen.

The Aviation Chief of SOCOM was considering getting out; he did not like desk jobs and anything he did next would not be in SOCOM in all likelihood. So when SOCOM mentioned the idea, he was interested as well. With the rather slow state of things at the moment (SOCOM was less busy now then they had been since it had been created) anything that promised to be different and interesting was desirable.

"Well, it seems the 160th would be the ones on the hot seat."

"In all probability; but let's face the facts: the best right now is the 161st."

"True, though the gap has narrowed after she worked their tails off. And the new training officer for the 160th looks like someone who can keep it up."

"We both know the bottom line of this challenge is aimed right at her and her people. They pretty much embarrassed the Greeks."

"From all accounts once the Greeks broke through the F-35 screen they thought it was easy pickings afterwards and the Super Apache's just flat out bushwhacked them."

"In all honesty at any altitude and say over water the Super Apache's would be hard pressed to survive at all against a modern trained fighter force. But even there if they go to almost sea level they will be very difficult for any airborne radar even AWACS to see them. Not being seen really evens things out. And as regards defenses against missiles the Super Apache has the same defensive capabilities as the F-22; ECM, ECCM, chaff and flares. They have a very light infrared signature so heat seekers would have a hard time anyway. And the designers have thought that they can lock on an incoming missile with the AMRAAM. It would be hairy but possible. Bottom line is that only at altitude is the Super Apache really in bad shape."

"Well, talk it over with her and see what she really thinks."

Liz had just come down from another nearly all day training session with the Marines. They were coming along well; she had a feeling that by the time the ships arrived in November they would be ready to roll. She was just sitting behind her desk looking with distaste at the paperwork there when her phone rang.

"General, its SOCOM Aviation."

"General, what is up?"

"The Air Force wants to prove the Super Apache is no match for their F-16's, unlike the Greeks."

"Really? Where did this come from?"

"The Deputy Commandant for Aviation tweaked them. That got the flyboys all upset and apparently the swab jockeys as well. They are sensitive about that sort of thing."

"And they do not want to wait until the Marines are activated."

"Pretty much. Nothing formal has come down, but it was brought up at a Joint Chiefs meeting. So I have no doubt something will be coming."

"Us and not the 160th, which are right there in the states and can do this fairly easily?"

"Come on Liz, you know very well that they want to knock off the Champ and that is you."

"I know but it is not like I am just lying around doing nothing."

"That is the price you pay for being #1."

"So how do you think they want to do this?"

"They want it out in the open; you want it in real terrain; they will want it higher up; you will want it on the ground."

"Duh. How about this? We beat them to the punch and challenge them to come to our back yard and fight it out?"

"Scotland or Campbell?"

"Not sure. We have all those lovely trees and hills in Campbell; but we have the cliffs and beaches here in Scotland. Overall probably Campbell would be better. But I cannot take the time to come over."

"True. You have heard how this is done?"

"Gun cameras and transmitters that show what each aircraft can see and it's all fed into a central location that decides who shot who down."

"That and the data from each aircrafts computer. Showing when they got lock and the like."

Liz sat back and thought about it. OK why not?

"Have them come here and see what they can do. I can talk to the locals and see if they do not mind us using the islands in this area; hilly and craggy and should give us an edge."

"OK, I will start it going. When do you want to do it?"

"Next month before the weather gets too bad."

"She really thinks they have a shot at doing well?"

"Yes. She will use the terrain and such. And let's face it, you know the fly boys will come in hot and arrogant."

"More than likely. OK, I will let it drop at the next JCS meeting next week."

Liz got the Marines qualified at the beginning of November; then was informed that the next group would not be sent till January. Which was fine with her.

It was formally set up that the first week in December two squadrons of F-16's would be visiting for a week to settle things as regarding who was the Big Bad in the air. Liz proceeded to talk to the company Rep from Boeing who then talked to some others and began to look at things. Suggestions came about how to deal with being hunted by F-16's, and how to strike back.

And so it came to be on December 3 Liz led the Super Apache's out of the base and north about 30 miles to the islands there. It was a cold but clear day. The F-16's, coming from Lakenheath, would circle around and come towards those islands. Their target was the base, but knew that the defense would be to the North. They came in at 35,000 feet thinking to use their radar advantage; there was an AWACS nearby.

Liz deliberately split her command; one company stayed back near the base; one mid-way; and she took the third forward. She took them right near the ground; the only rule was that they could not actually be on the ground. In Loch Tarbert she waited and then when she got the first radar indications that they were near deliberately popped up to 100 feet then dropped down.

The Major leading the first squadron went for them from high while the second squadron went low.

Liz had been deep in the loch and had then moved towards the mouth, staying near the shore at about a height of 20 feet. She then waited until she and all her people got lock and then let go with first a Sidewinder then an AMRAAM. Then headed back into the loch. The second company had waited until they got the signal from Liz then popped up and acquired locks and each fired a Sidewinder and a AMRAMM. Then they headed at speed back towards the Base.

Liz popped up over the hills then went down the coast heading south, staying low.

Meanwhile the high squadron had managed to supposedly break all but 4 locks and had sighted the choppers only to get swatted by the second company.

The last company moved at speed towards the battle area staying at about 15-20 feet above the water.

The second squadron came around the area at about 5000 feet and were smacked in the face by the second company who fired off the rest of their ordnance. Liz then caught them between her and the third company in a vice.

"Ok, what is the tally?"

"The first fight was ugly; of the 36 F-16's that came 28 were considered either confirmed or probable's; they got only 5 of the Super Apache's."

"That is really going to torque them off."

"Yep."

"OK, people, we got 28 and lost 5. But we really caught them by surprise and fat dumb and happy. And way over confident. Tomorrow will be different."

To say that the fighter jocks were pissed is to say the sky is blue. But they had to admit they had walked into it. Well, they would show who was boss the next day.

Liz let her people celebrate for a while then got down to day two of 'Whack the Jock.'

She figured, after talking with some experts in this area, that they would realize coming in high was a mistake. Gave too much warning. So this day she would bet they would come at low level. In other words right into her parlor, said the spider to the fly.

She spread her people all around the peninsula, all on the beaches except for her and Company B, she would be with a different company each day. They stayed hovering near trees and basically hard to see not far from the base. They had the run of the area since the Golf Course was closed for the season.

Today the two squadrons came screaming in at below 5000 feet and then went to wave height. They found out that this did not do them much good; as their radar was still unable to find anyone. Until they were right near the beaches where the Apache's lay in wait. One squadron came from the North and one from the South. Got worked over by the Apache's on the beach and then as they went over the base at only 500 feet got scorched by Liz and her company.

"Better or worse?"

"They lost only 20; but they only got 2 Apache's."

"So from 7-1 they went to 10-1."

"Their post mission debriefing ought to be fun."

The third day they decided to not go as low but not as high the first day; and to maneuver over the land not around the beaches and such. They did better as Liz had her people mostly on land for that one. 18 vs 6.

The fourth day they stood off and worked at figuring where the Apache's were; but Liz foiled them by keeping her people low and hovering; radar once again useless; finally they headed for the base and got caught as Liz deliberately rose then dropped; they overwhelmed her and C Squadron, getting all 9 of them while losing only 6; but the other two squadrons took out 20 more with no loss as they back shot them. 26 vs 9. Which was the best ratio they had gotten.

Fifth day one squadron came in hard as basically a decoy at full speed just below supersonic. They lost 12 as Liz was waiting for them. The other squadron went right for the base and it was declared destroyed; but lost 6 more post bombing supposedly. But they got no Apaches so it was 18-0.

The sixth and last day they split their squadrons into 6 plane sections and surrounded the area and bored in. In that melee they did better but the total still was 25 to 12. 135 vs 37 overall. Just over 3.5 to 1.

"Unbelievable."

"Yes sir."

"These were not bad squadrons."

"No sir, not our best but probably above average."

"Going against the best there is on the other side."

"If there was any doubt of that it is gone now."

"There will be hell to pay about this."

"Yes, sir."

The Deputy Commandant for Aviation looked at the Commandant.

"After further review they changed the numbers a little but not much. Pretty much the same result. The Top Gun people will also be looking at it."

"And so will everyone else."

SOCOM and his Aviation Chief looked at the results. He looked at his chief.

"She really got into their heads I bet."

"That she did; she clearly out maneuvered them. They tried several different tactics and none of them worked well. They could not get any real radar returns because she kept her people low to the ground. She played the ambush game and they got ambushed. Bottom line is that they have the edge; and that is always true when playing defense."

The last JCS meeting for Christmas was expected to be interesting; one week after the end of the exercise.

The Air Force Chief of Staff wasted no time and put it right out there.

"OK, my people went in fat dumb happy and stupid and got waxed. Needless to say we want a rematch."

The CNO put his oar in. "Our F-18's would like to have their shot."

SOCOM looked at them calmly. "I believe some exercises can be arranged."

Meanwhile the Commandant said nothing. Just smiled.

After the great Scottish Turkey Shoot, as her people called it, things settled down. It was the holidays and the year had been pretty busy. So Liz pretty much let people off as much as she could. She had to maintain enough personnel on base to respond if needed, but she kept that to the absolute minimum. Nancy came over with Ted for a visit; then a real surprise when Maria and her brood of 4 came as well. Liz loved having Maria there; they got a chance to talk like they had not been able to for a long while. Max and Michael got along surprisingly well; and the kids did fine; Nancy enjoyed being with all of them and Aliya found that being the big sister was nice. The new housing had gotten done in August, so there was plenty of room for families to visit. Liz simply put it out that since the rooms would be vacant then people could invite family and they could stay for a minimum stipend. Which was way cheaper than any motels in the area. So quite a large number of families of the people of the 161st came to stay for those holidays.

Liz and Maria were lazing one night, just the day after Christmas, just sitting and eating ice cream and hanging out. Liz looked at her friend.

"So what is the latest with Tess and Isabel?"

"Tess is really thinking about another child; Kyle is willing. Isabelle has Alex thoroughly trained now and it is kind of fun to watch. They are happy."

"When we met in Basic did you ever think we would end up lifelong buddies?"

"Not right away; but by the time Basic was done I knew that all four of us were best buds for life."

"I have been so lucky; I never had the friends before I came in that I got being in. The three of you and the Crew and the Posse. Incredibly lucky."

"We have all been real lucky; but if one is talking about luck then you really need to play the lotto. You were born with a rabbits foot and a four leaf clover already as part of you. No other way to explain all of this."

"Cannot argue. Just living through it without anything but a couple of scratches does constitute considerable luck."

Maria was silent for a moment. "Liz I remember once early on you talking about the Gods of War. More and more I get the feeling you are a chosen of the Gods of War. I hear you had something big going on recently."

"You mean the training exercise in Cyprus, Greece and Turkey?"

"No, not that. I heard you reamed the Air Force a new one."

"Yeah, they came in fat dumb and happy and we sent them back smarter wiser and in pieces. Ambush big time."

"We make it a point to listen in and read some of the military forums. They sent two F-16 squadrons after you and the word is you cleaned their clocks."

"Pretty much. Fighter jocks are all dick and no brains."

"Liz Parker! Your mom would wash your mouth out for that!"

"Hey. I am an old soldier now and old soldiers are allowed to cuss."

"Old my ass. You are only 32. And you don't even look that. You still look years younger than any of us. Which is really bizarre since it is not like you don't have lots to do and responsibility out the yang. And what is this about the Marines?"

"Training them has not been too bad once I weeded out the wannabe's from the real thing."

"Still bizarre you doing it and not other Marines. Even though you are the ones that started the Super Apache's."

"Common sense; and the Marines have gotten a bad rep I think. The pilots there are smarter than the Air Force jocks."

"Not exactly a high bar."

"True but they definitely think more. Now of course I only took the ones I thought were worth it but still overall much more mature."

"Still trying to get over you being a General. The look on your face was just so funny. You really were shocked out of your gourd."

"Absolutely. Realistically I was at least one if not two years off from that."

"Youngest General in the US military since the Civil War. But then you have really earned it. Liz tell me: when you saw those SOBs going into that bunker, didn't you really worry?"

"No. They were not going to have time to do anything. They would have needed at least half an hour, maybe more. They barely had a minute before I was blowing that door off. The plasma jets from the Hellifires fried them quick."

"EEEEEWWW."

"The SF took pictures but I have made it a point not to look."

"Good call."

"Really that mission was not all that tough. Just looked that way and the stakes were so high."

"Liz. You probably stopped World War III."

"That has been exaggerated. Honestly I look back at it and how in the world were the idiots going to get them anywhere before they got hit from the air by someone? The Pakistanis, Us, whoever?"

"What if they just wanted to set one off to get things started?"

"As long as it happened in Pakistan, India would not have done anything. Only if they had gotten it to India was that a concern. And there is realistically no way that could have happened."

"Maybe but that is not what most think. Liz, rescuing Aliya was huge; this one was gigantic and humongous in one. You are immortal."

"The Crew said that when I rescued Aliya. But I guess there is always another high bar to get over. Not that I care much anyway."

"That is why we love you. Despite everything it has never gone to your head. Liz, you really are a hero. And you act like one should."

Liz blushed and Maria giggled. "Lizzy blushes!"

After settling down a little, Maria got serious.

"So what is the next step?"

Liz shrugged. "When they pry me out of here I go to Command School where I guess they teach me to command." She said with a smirk.

"When that happens there are going to be a whole lot of people shaking their heads. NO one has a thing to teach you about command."

"Well there are some things I probably need to learn regarding logistics and such; but yeah it pretty much is going to be 10 months of boredom."

"Maybe that won't be such a bad thing?"

"Maybe. I was kicking around the idea of having another baby but I don't think so. Just do not feel the need; unlike you."

"I think maybe four is enough. Michael thinks so."

"Well duh."

"So after the 10 months where would you go?"

"Technically any one star position in the Army; or for the DOD. Realistically probably a pretty high profile one. I would hope for the Aviation Commander of SOCOM but I doubt it."

"Is there a place they would not send you?"

"Well, they are not going to try and bury me. Actually Brigadier is an interesting rank. Mostly assistants and the like considered to be a learning rank. Like Lt Colonel."

"Well you are active in your rank now."

"True but I am over ranked for this position. But considering it is an important position and it is overseas not markedly so."

"How long do you think you have?"

"Another year."

Once back on the job Liz began to think about the fact that she would probably be gone in a year; and began to think about her successor. After what happened with the 160th, she knew it was very important to have the next guy ready to go. As she looked at her battalion commanders, she zeroed in on Sam Young and thought hard about him. The more she thought, the more she began to see him as the guy. And so she made a call.

SOCOM listened and considered things. "I will be back to you on this."

His Aviation chief, due to retire in less than a year, considered it. And nodded.

"General Parker, we will look into your request and see what we can do."

The Aviation chief was pensive. "She really is thinking about this; and good for her. I get a feeling that something else is going on." And looked at SOCOM.

"There is but at this time I can say nothing."

The next batch of Marine Pilots appeared right after New Year's, along with what Colonel Martin told Liz were some much more carefully screened copilots.

The next few months went by quickly as Liz trained the Marines and began to make moves to push Sam Young up to her designated successor. He got his Lt Colonel's wings and Jim told Liz she should make him her XO.

"Jim, are you sure?"

"Liz, I got my birds thanks to you. This is as far as I go. My wife and I really like it here; and when it's time to go then I will hang it up and smile. You gave me a chance to be part of something really special and that is enough for me."

So Liz did just that.

"You wanted to see me General?"

"Colonel Young, effective 1 March you will be the 161st XO."

"So she is really sure he is the guy?"

"That is what she says and she made him her XO."

Liz could hear the clock ticking. As the Spring turned into Summer, and the last of the Marines were trained, she began to wonder what she would be doing next. The Command Staff College was a given; but after that who knew. She just hoped it was an interesting slot. She knew her days of flying ended when she moved beyond the 161st. She wondered if she could stand it.

Proving that they were not totally stupid, the fly boys wanted to take on the 160th. Liz had long conversations with the Battalion commander of the 160th Apaches and made some suggestions. In the end he did quite well; the second round also went to the Apache's, if only by a little over 1.7 to 1. Once again they made the F-16's come to them and used the terrain advantages around Campbell. The fact that in two separate areas the F-16's lost was very hard for the fly boys to swallow.

The Swab Jockeys wanted their shot as well; and they wanted to take on the Champ. Since there really was no situation where the Super Apache's would ever be in mid ocean, Liz accepted on the proviso that they fight near her base. So in May they came to try their luck. They brought a Viking, which was considered the AWACS little brother, to help. Big Brother would once again monitor. They brought 3 squadrons to the fight; and Liz knew they would make sure they were the best ones they could shake loose for this. She had some long talks with her people; working on strategy.

"OK. We have to figure they are not stupid and know that the best places for us to be is low and hidden. The Viking is pretty good but it is not as good as a AWACS and they have just as much trouble finding us when we are in the weeds. Yet there is not a whole lot they can do about it. They have to come to us and they know that it will be real hard for them to see us and virtually impossible for their radar to spot us. But our radar does tell them they are being targeted. I think they will try and have some flying high and trying to look down; maybe 15,000 or lower. I would not put it past them to be willing to sacrifice some of their people by sending a section out to try and make us show ourselves. This time it will be much more of a chess game. The Viking might be able to monitor our radios so we will be using the low bands; they will have a hard time doing anything directional with that. Make sure, people, that you watch your transmissions; keep them short and to the code we agreed on. The tower will be giving warnings on omni directional transmissions so that we don't have to worry about them getting any info that way. We might have to use some of you as decoys; sacrificial lambs so to say. Keep your heads in the game and your eyes open; our advantage is that they have to move and we do not; use it."

And it was a chess match. The first fight resembled the others; and once again Liz was able to execute a couple of ambushes. They were more careful than the air force hotshots so they did not do as bad. Still the first day ended 17-6.

The second day they did better as they did indeed use some elements as bait and a couple of times it worked. By the end of the day it was 13-9.

The third day Liz got really sneaky; she used a couple of Apache's as bait and put them forward and the Swab Jockeys got overconfident and she ambushed them badly. 21-7.

The fourth day they held back and tried to outwait the Apache's but Liz's people maintained discipline and finally they tried a mass assault which did not do too bad but they still lost. 27-10.

The fifth day they got very cautious and used multiple elements as bait and going right after them. But the Super Apache's managed to do well no matter what. 15-7.

Liz had her people using Sidewinders almost exclusively the last couple of days; on the sixth she decided to take a chance and go with the AMRAAMS first. This caught the Swab Jockeys by surprise and messed up their ambush plans which might have worked. 18-9.

The total ended up 115-48. Much better than the Fly Boys had done but still a decisive defeat.

In the critique after wards the Navy Captain who had planned the exercise admitted that as long as the Super Apache's had cover and could stay low, they would have the edge.

Liz gave her people the next 2 days off as a reward for doing so well. She took off as well and spent time with her family.

"This is going to have a serious impact on tactics."

"Three separate exercises all showing basically the same thing. That is pretty definite."

"The F-35 guys are not happy."

"Too bad."

"When will they be operational?"

"Next month. The 160th just gave them a tough contest so they are ready."

"The new training officer of the 160th seems very good."

"They needed one; first one they have had that is close to her. Not quite as good but then she is the best. He is sneaky and nasty and that is what you need."

Liz waited as the intelligence officer began his briefing. She had this done once a week and once a month had him give an update on the world situation.

Europe was doing better; even the three weak sisters were improving. So far no more problems seen there. The rest of the continent seemed all right as well. Africa was as usual; no real problems they would care about. The Middle East was quiet at the moment and you had to take what you could get there. Russia and the Ukraine were not happy with each other; Russia felt he Ukraine was not doing enough to keep an eye on any Chechens they had and the Ukraine basically told them to stick it. But that was just the usual bickering; nothing indicated it would amount to anything. The rest of the former USSR was if not peaceful at least not threatening. Iraq was as always a little unsettled; the Kurds were still poking at the Turks but nothing unusual. Afghanistan was in an uneasy peace which was about the best you could hope for. Pakistan was doing ok; the clamp down on the ISI had eased things considerably with India. The level of tension there was much less than it had been. China was beginning to surface from its Three Gorges Dam collapse but they no longer had the overflowing cash box they had before and that helped; also there were signs that the monolithic Communist party was starting to fracture; the capitalists were gaining influence. The recent major mistakes by the military on the new aircraft carrier that was going to have to be mostly rebuilt; and on the new fighter that was supposedly a rival to the F-22 and turned out to be a total lemon had diminished the military's influence measurably.

Otherwise there were no real worries on the horizon. Except for one.

Iran was literally boiling. The protests that had been stamped on in 2010 and 2011 had been pushed underground but had not been extinguished in any way. The crazy whack job was gone but the new so called President was a true puppet to the Mullahs, who as long as they had the support of the Revolutionary Guard would stay in power. But it was increasingly clear that resistance was growing. The Guards did a very good job of adding more Martyrs to the resistances memories; and making them madder and madder. What had everyone worried, though, was their steady persistence in making a nuclear weapon. The process had been seriously derailed with the CIA's computer worm infestation; but they had finally started to move beyond that. Russia was beginning to realize that helping them with their unneeded nuclear power program had not been a good idea, but it was too late.

Early that year Liz had been one of the operational commanders briefed on the latest there. She had gone to the Pentagon and had been one of only a dozen in the room.

"The President has made it clear that we cannot afford to have the Mullah's get a bomb; especially some that has very good reason to feel insecure. The resistance is steadily growing despite increasingly vicious attempts to crush it. As history shows that tends to just make any resistance movement that has real popular backing tougher. Needless to say the Israeli's feel the same. They have been constantly refining their strike plans. We have seen nothing that indicates their total unwillingness to accept an Iranian Nuclear weapon has changed at all. Best estimates are that once they think that Iran is within 6 months of testing one they will start the countdown. When the Iranians successfully test one the Israeli's will strike. It has quietly been the policy of the US that when that time comes we will assist them. Most likely with tankers; but it is possible we will use other assets."

Liz did not need a piano to fall on her head to figure out what those other 'assets' might be.

"Our information has been firmed up in the last year; we now are reasonably certain exactly where the program is based. Needless to say the Iranians made sure the installations were deep underground and meant to withstand conventional bombs. The Parchin, Natanz, and Esfahan facilities are where we are certain that the major parts of the program are based. Natanz appears the most crucial; and is defended accordingly. We believe our latest edition of the bunker buster will penetrate and destroy those locations. However Israel does not have the aircraft capable of delivering them. They weigh over 20,000 lbs. Only our B-2 and B-52 can carry them. But the Israelis want to be sure; so the plan they have put together is to hit the others with air strikes but put Paratroopers at Natanz to make sure. It does not take a genius to see that those paratroopers would be considered expendable."

Liz shivered at that. With the way the Israeli's treated their military, making them expendable told her just how serious they were.

"There is an airfield nearby that C-130's could use. The Israeli's would almost certainly try. But it would be very tough for them."

Liz wondered if the US would then help. That was answered quickly.

"The president has made the decision that we would try and help."

"That decision made, it is up to us to figure out how to do it."

From that point on it became about getting them out of there. Which would consist of neutralizing the Iranian air defense so that the transports could get in and out. Liz was quite glad to see that nothing was planned for her unit. But why was she here, then? She was to find out after the meeting.

She had been asked to stay behind; it was only her and the briefer, a Colonel Marin, who was Army Intelligence.

"I am sure you wondered why you were here, since none of the scenarios mentioned involved you."

"Now I find out."

"Correct. The current way the Israeli's have this operation configured is that along with the Paratroopers they will be dropping ATV's. Only a company of paratroopers, just at 120. The ATV's are four men each. So that means 30 of them, with probably a couple of extras. They have a range of about 100 miles. If they cannot get in the C-130's to get them out, they will head west through the passes in the mountains here. Basically to get as far away as they can. Then call for pickup. In terrain that no aircraft could reach."

Liz began to get a cold feeling. "But that range is still probably 200 miles from Iraq."

"At least; probably closer to 250."

She sighed. "Getting Black Hawks in that far means refueling somewhere."

"Which is why they would not be used."

"Chinooks? That is tough on that kind of penetration, even with escort."

"This has been batted about for over a year. Black Hawks, Chinooks, even DAP's were considered. The problem is that nothing we have has the range without refueling. And that would be extremely risky given that the Iranians have worked hard on the last 5 years in increasing their anti-aircraft defenses. So any refueling would be extremely risky. But an alternative was proposed and it has been looked at and found to be the most likely successful possibility."

He then opened a folder and showed her. She managed to keep her jaw from dropping but barely. "This has been tested and found to work."

She took a deep breath. "I guess it makes sense but that is still going to be really tough on those paratroopers."

"Better than being captured."

She looked at it again. "One on each side carrying 3."

"Which means the helicopter would be carrying six. Leaving off the 2.75 rockets and hellfires would compensate for the weight. It is made out of Kevlar so it will give them protection from small arms fire."

"This is different from the ones on the Little Birds."

"Much improved; the Plexiglas cover protects them from the wind; and it is bolted to the wing."

"This would take some work; our wing is moveable. It would have to be fixed and then disconnected from the flight controls."

"It can be done in one hour."

She sighed and nodded. "Where will they be kept in the meantime?"

"We do not want anyone to know we are working on this; so they are kept at Campbell."

Afterwards she wondered when they would decide to try and start using them in other operations. Thinking about that crazy operation she hoped if the time came that the US just dropped the bunker busters instead. But she knew why this was thought up: depending on the administration, they might not be willing to drop the bombs. But they would be quite willing to sacrifice her people, she thought bitterly.

Liz finished listening to the intelligence briefing thinking that maybe she needed to have a talk with him; he did not need to give an over view every time when the audience was the same. But that was a relatively minor detail. Overall he did well.

She went outside for some fresh air; in mid-June it was warmer than usual; in the low 60's. Clearing from the rain they had this morning the sun was out and warming things up. She knew she would miss Scotland when it was her time to go.

With the training of the Marines done; and no exercises scheduled for the next month, it was a time to kick back some. She had run the Regiment through one of her scenarios last week and had pushed them some; they were in good shape.

She knew that probably early next year she would be pulled away and sent to Command School; the Army War College. SOCOM had hinted she would not be going through all the standard courses; which suited her fine. And having almost a year off from the pressures of command would be very good. She could spend more time with her family and friends. She just wished that it was closer to either Nashville or Savanna. Still, Carlisle, PA would be a good place to live for a while. The northeast had a lot of historical sites to see. And the War College was a short drive from Gettysburg. A place Liz had always wanted to see.

A week later Liz was working away at the never ending paperwork when Jim came in.

"Flash Traffic."

Liz remembered the last time that had happened; she really hoped this one was not as interesting.

Liz skimmed it quickly then read it more carefully and sat back. Not exactly a surprise. Well, at least they had time; and maybe this was wrong or something else would come up. One could hope. She called in Jim and Sam Young.

"Iran. The leading opposition figure was just killed by the Revolutionary Guards. The wonks think that this might just be the final straw. We shall see. At the moment it has no effect on us. This is just advisory; the details in it are more than you are going to hear on TV or read in any of the newspapers. The pot is about to boil over; this is just the last in a series of moves the Mullah's have taken trying to keep the lid on. I doubt it will work any better. At the moment we will not be increasing our alert factor. Unless something different comes down the pike, this is more something we will just be watching to see what comes next than anything else."

The next few days there were no more Flash messages; while the Iranian Government was trying to keep anyone from knowing, they were unable to seal the country off from the rest of the world. So the protests and violence were described if not shown on tv. The talking heads seemed to think it was finally boiling over. Some really brave Iranians were using their cell phones to send pictures; and others with satellite phones were doing the same.

Then another Flash message came that said that it was escalating; the military was firing on demonstrators; hundreds had been killed in Tehran alone. And the protests were nationwide. Civil war was just about certain if it had not begun already; and it was going to be bloody. The Mullah's had been very careful to make sure the Revolutionary guards were the most dedicated and fanatical followers; so their support was just about a given. They had been expanded over the last 5 years to a force of over 500,000. They had for all intents and purposes taken over all military responsibilities. There was differing opinions on just how good they were at real military procedures. Though it seemed they had worked hard on some things like air defense. That increase was more than double what they had been before 2011; and it was questionable just how good the new comers were; and how devoted. But so far there seemed to be no cracks.

The next week brought more of the same; it was clear that Iran's economy had all but stopped; and no country could keep that up for long. The third Flash Message indicated that there were cracks showing: some of the units of the Revolutionary guards were not as committed as the Mullah's had thought; there was information that there had been several mass executions. The message indicated that the Intelligence Services believed that the end game was coming soon. At that point Liz put her people at a level 1 alert, which told them they needed to stay nearby and be ready.

The CIA and NSA along with most of the world's intelligence agencies were monitoring the situation as best they could. Very few had any real agents at any level in Iran. Satellites and intercepted messages helped, but agents in place still trumped all that and no one seemed to have many if any at all. There were those that could watch what was happening in the streets and report it but what was going on inside the Revolutionary Guards was what was really important and no one knew that.

The President expected a daily update and was not very happy with the lack of hard information.

"Billions are spent each year and all you can tell me is little more than what is on the web from camera phones?"

"Sir as far as we know no one has been able to get any agents close enough to the real power to know what is happening. Satellites and intercepts do give us more details on what is happening. But not why or who is in control. It is clear that the Guard is starting to fracture; the newer units have been shown to lack the necessary religious zeal the Mullah's want; at least 5 reported instances of a whole company sized unit being executed. But even the more established units no longer are showing monolithic devotion. It is clear this cannot continue; the refineries and oil ports are closed; so no more money is coming in. Factories and the like are not operating. Transportation is breaking down. It is a matter of time before food starts becoming scarce. That is the final tipping point in our estimation. Starving people no longer care about anything except food and will not be stopped except with a bullet in each one. There are over 80 million people in Iran; that number consumes a lot of everything that is no longer being produced. And even half a million guns will not stop them from doing what they want."

"How long?"

"A few weeks at most. We would be amazed if something big does not happen in that time that finishes things off."

"It is clear; the faithful no longer are."

"Western influences have ruined us."

"All is not lost yet. There is good news; away from where everyone is looking and watching our project managers say they are ready."

"No one suspects?"

"We have been very careful. All too many think there is only one way to make one; there is the first way which is very simple and very reliable, and of sufficient size to be decisive."

"We must test one!"

"The Zionists and the Great Satan will know then. We must bring our people back to Allah, unite them. The only way is to make them aware of our real power."

"Where?"

"Sirjan."

"Where it started."

"It will be cleansed in fire."

Liz was getting a bad feeling about Iran; she just knew it was about to get a lot worse.

"How did we miss this?"

"We thought that like everyone else they were working on getting a modern warhead that could be miniaturized for missile use."

"How many do you think they have?'

"If they used all their available material in this way, as many as 7-10."

"Air transportable?'

"Yes, but not close to being small enough for missiles; each one probably weighs 3 tons."

"The information is that specific?'

"Israel has been the ones most worried for good reason; the fact that they managed to get anyone inside is amazing. Their agent only found out yesterday; a small working group did it; isolated from everyone else. The yield will probably be about 25KTs."

"Big enough. What are their plans?"

"Their agent said that they were told it would be used soon to convince the unbelievers."

"How is he getting this out?"

"The agent is able to email another person using their intranet; it is buried in some porn. The agent is a brilliant mathematician and is forgiven his weakness because of it."

"That is a lot of information on their agent."

"They really want us to believe."

"In order to help them."

"Of course."

"Mr President, they have bombs now. They went with the gun design; the Hiroshima model. Limited in size but very simple to make once you have the fissile material. The Israeli's think they have enough for 7-10 25KTs bombs. Too big for anything but a strike plane to handle but will still get it done."

"You are authorized to take out that site. Support the Israeli's for the other strikes."

The NSA was busy checking everything when someone noticed something.

"They are not sure it will work?'

"Sir, the strange composition of the roof of that Nantaz site was puzzling; we knew they were building it to withstand our bunker busters. But it was only just now we noticed that detail about the third level. It is too deep for the bomb to probably compensate for it. Having an air gap of 40 feet before the final barrier will cause it to detonate almost for certain. And in that case the last level will probably survive."

"We can't fix the bomb to compensate?'

"It will take months of work, sir, to be sure. At the very least several weeks to come up with and make something."

"The only other option is to use a nuke ourselves?"

"Yes sir if you want to be certain."

"So it is either that or the Israeli operation. And we did not plan one of our own."

"No sir."

"When?"

"They want to move in 24 hrs."

"Do it."

Liz read the latest Flash Message. She called in Jim and Sam.

"We are going to help the Israeli's take out the Iranian bombs."

"They have them?"

"They went simple and hid it- they have 7-10 or will have soon."

"What is our role?"

"Rescue and the details you will just love. Get 1st Battalion ready to load and C Company of 2nd Battalion. My chopper as well."

The transport aircraft arrived in two hours; they had all the choppers ready to go by the time they arrived. They were staging at an Iraqi airfield that had been abandoned near Kut.

They made it by 2000 that evening. Once there the crews from the states started to bolt on the carrying pods onto the Apache's. 20 Apaches would have them placed on the wings; they would have their rocket and hellfire pods taken off; leaving them with only the 30MM. Liz and 4 others would go in with full war loads as escorts. The Israeli's would hit at 0200. Liz and her people were ready to go at 0130, but would wait for the word to leave.

The US was able to get AWACS and some other aircraft in position and they began jamming the Iranian radar as the Israeli C-130's went in. Then there was this huge white glow from Southern Iran.

NORAD was watching with satellites; so they saw it first of all the rest of the planet besides those there.

"That is a nuclear detonation; location Sirjan Iran. Estimated yield 27 KTs."

"Mr President, it is believed that the rebellion really started there and that is why the Mullah's did it. The Revolutionary Guard was driven out just a few days ago."

"An example."

"Yes sir."

"How many?"

"Population was about 185,000. Though less now since a fair number have probably fled the fighting. But at least 100,000."

"Is there any chance more of them have been moved out?"

"Very unlikely sir. All signs show this as a case of the big stick scaring everyone, especially their own citizens."

"The Israeli's are already on their way?"

"Yes sir."

Liz and the others stood there shocked as they got the word. She closed her eyes then opened them and looked at her people who were waiting for her to say something.

"If you want to know why, there is your answer. That is what would have happened if we had not been successful in Pakistan. Only many times worse. Get in your choppers, people; we are taking off in 30 minutes."

The Israeli Commandos were the best of the best of the Israeli military; they had been training for this operation for years. 110 landed then moved in. A barrage of HARM missiles had knocked out all the Iranian radar systems and they had dropped at 400 feet to make sure they were right on top of the main facility. They were all carrying demo charges to not only blow up the bombs but to blow the doors leading to them. Their agent had given them the exact layout so there were no missed steps. The guard force was not expecting a ground attack; only air so they were slow to react and that cost them. It took them only 30 minutes to reach the bombs; 3 more had been assembled and there were components for several more after them. Detonating charges were laid on each item and component. When they went off there would be very little left. They used old fashioned time fuze; the surest way of all to make sure things detonated. Double primed on every item.

Up above the word had gone out; the other installations had been hit as well and virtually obliterated. But there were reserves of the Guard nearby and they began to close.

The plan had been changed; Liz and the Apaches were sent in no matter what and had already penetrated the Iranian border as they headed towards Natanz.

Liz led the Super Apache's; she and the 4 other fully armed ones the only escort they had. It was just too short a time to get much else nearby. Then went in low as possible; they had a map made for them but it was still hairy as all get out.

2 C-130's came in to land at the air strip; but there were Iranians left with good hand held Air to air missiles and they both were shot down. The ATV's were going to be needed. Both crews died. 45 minutes after landing the Israeli commandos were on their way out of the area. The Revolutionary guard began to pursue, spurred on when the explosion below ground told them that what they had been guarding was destroyed.

The Israeli's had planned their retreat; they paused and laid some mines that slowed down the pursuit.

By putting everything they had into it, the US Air Force was able to get two squadrons of F-15E's in the vicinity; loaded with HARMS and the like they began to work over the remaining Iranian Air Defenses.

The Iranians sent all the aircraft they could muster for night ops towards the scene; but were unable to see where they should go. The US had hit a lot of sites and were trying not to be obvious about what air defenses they really needed to knock out. But a few figured it out and started to head towards the Iraqi border.

At 0315, Liz got the first message from the Israeli commandos.

"Reached area 1."

Liz checked her map; they would be at area 2 in time so she sent back.

"Pick up at area 2."

Liz had the apaches moving at just under 190 MPH. The carriers slowed down the other Apache's a fair amount due to wind resistance, otherwise they would have been doing about 210.

The Israeli's had used up all their mines and the Revolutionary guard was gaining; they had vehicles that were faster than the ATVS. They neared area 2.

The Guard had managed to contact the aircraft and several were heading their way.

Liz saw the blips on the radar and nodded her head; the Iranians were not very skilled at night work but clearly this was important enough to try. She ordered her lead group to lock on with Sidewinders at 5 miles. They were staying low enough that odds were they were not known about yet.

"Area 2 in 5 miks. Enemy closing."

Liz looked at her screen; there were only 3 aircraft in range that would be a problem. She designated the others to take them out; she moved ahead to the target area to take care of the pursuit.

The vehicles were easy to see; the night vision on the 30MM site was very good; Liz waited until her other choppers had closed on the aircraft and ordered them to fire immediately; they did and then she started firing her 2.75 guided HE rds at the vehicles; they blew up quite nicely. She noted that the three targets in the air had also disappeared. She quickly circled the area and noted the Israeli force. 5 minutes later the rest of the apaches began to land. She had the rest of the escort drop down low; they did not want to give any more radar returns if possible.

It took 20 minutes to land and get all the commandos strapped in; the longest 20 minutes Liz had ever lived through. Then they headed out at 0410 and booked it west. Liz once again led them; but the ride back was strangely easy; the F-15's had pulverized everything they could find and that was enough. They got to Kut at 0515. The Commandos had lost 5 dead and 2 wounded; but not badly; the 4 crew from the two C-130's made the loss 9 Dead and 2 wounded.

The world was horrified by the event of bombing their own city. The Iranian government announced it and that anyone that interfered would be turned into ashes. But only hours after that was announced the US and Israel in a joint statement announced that the bombs were destroyed. And the Iranian ability to do it again with it. The US had fired cruise missiles on top of the Israeli attacks and had leveled most of the facilities at all three sites. Amazingly the Israeli losses were only those at Natanz.

The loss of the bombs was the final straw for the Mullah's and the revolutionary guard began to divide and fight itself; and the rest of the country demanded the heads of the Mullah's. Iran dissolved into full civil war. The fallout from Sirjan headed southwest on the winds and Pakistan, the UAE and Oman were in the path. People there began to panic.

After they landed Liz walked up to the Israeli Major and introduced herself.

"General Elizabeth Parker, 161st SOAR, US Army."

"Major Tov Hannah, 35th Brigade, Israeli Army."

"Congratulations Major. That was well done."

"Thank you, General, for getting us out."

The Carriers were taken off of the Apache's, and transports arrived to take the Israeli's home. Liz looked around and took the first relaxed breath in over a day. She and the others were bone tired but they wanted to go home. So they sucked it up and by 0800 they were on their way, Liz and everyone else were soon asleep as they winged home.

Details about the mission were somewhat lacking coming from both the US and Israel. All Israel said was that they lost 9 dead and had 2 wounded and lost 2 C-130's. The US said they had no casualties.

The talking heads were able to ferret out a fair amount; the fact that a part of the 161st had taken off suddenly was one part; the 2 F-15 Squadrons another.

The DOD just said that yes they had participated and that was all. Liz was happy to leave it at that. They were all glad they had been too far away to see the nuclear blast.

In one respect Liz was unhappy about the mission because the use of the carriers had been a success and she could see more of it in the future.

The Israeli ceremony for their dead showed what units were involved and finally they bowed to pressure and let Major Hannah speak.

"We had trained for this for over a year. It went exactly as planned. Until the aircraft were shot down. Then we took our backup way out. The Americans picked us up and that was the end of it."

Pushed a little he simply said. "Our gratitude to General Parker and her people for getting us out."

The DOD only admitted that the 161st had gone into Iran and gotten the Israeli's out. And that they had had to shoot up some of the Revolutionary Guard to do it.

After the fallout finally settled to the ground, mostly in Iran but a small amount in Pakistan, the world heaved a huge sigh of relief. The fighting in Iran lasted over a month before the last of the old Guard killed themselves and the others surrendered; most of them were executed not long after. The Mullahs mostly killed themselves or were killed; no one wanted them around even for trial. Over 500,000 dead and wounded all told. Iran would be many years recovering. The nightmare that had lasted for many for 35 years was finally over.

Liz felt like she had had about enough of this sort of thing. Even if she had many fewer combat missions with the 161st then during her tours, the responsibility of taking care of her people had worn her down. She was beginning to realize that advancing beyond this level of command might not be that bad an idea after all. She began to wonder if she was burned out. Or maybe it just was that the last two missions had been basically her worst possible nightmares? True she had not lost anyone but the fact that nuclear weapons were involved in each was just too much. She had the feeling the longer she stayed at the 161st the worse the missions would get. Perhaps that was a foolish fear, but that seemed to be the pattern. She was coming around to the thought that leaving this command might not bring with it the regrets of leaving previous units. After this if she did command a unit again, she would be distanced from it; not up close and personal.

Things were quiet through August, then they had some more exercises with the British regiments here and there. The Brits had been able to spend more on their defense and thus more training money; so they no longer needed as much help. Liz looked around the base; it would be 3 years in October since they stood up. She was quite sure now that Sam Young would do a good job as her successor. She realized that she would not find it as hard to leave this position as some of her others.

SOCOM was talking to the Army Chief of Staff.

"So it is all set up?"

"A very special education program for a very special officer. First they will evaluate her and see what she needs to learn; then they will teach her. This is really the first time this has been tried and there was some resistance to it."

"Same old excuses about how she must fit into the system."

"Just about. The joke is that this sort of thing was done decades ago; a really gifted officer was given a tailored program."

"Let me guess; it was the McNamara influence that ended it."

"Got it in one."

"I really hope he is roasting in hell for all the damage he did."


	2. Chapter 2

On the 8th of September Liz was notified that she would be detached from command of the 161st and would report to Carlisle to attend the Army War college. Change of Command would be on 1 October. She would report 15 November.

Liz sat holding the message. Pensively she sat and thought. It was as expected; and she knew it was coming. But it was still a blow to the gut. Then another message was given to her. The Apache she had been using would be demilled and would be taken to the Smithsonian to hang with other famous aircraft. She smiled at that. She liked it. She got up and walked out of her office and went home early that day.

Max was surprised as Liz walked in and kissed him.

"Got the message today. Change of Command 1 October and report to Carlisle 15 November. Get this: they are going to shell out my Apache and have it hang in the Smithsonian."

"Not so bad, is it?"

"It is still a blow to lose the Regiment, but it is time."

The next day she announced it to her command. Then in the next week she took a quick tour of the British Regiments that she had worked with over the three years she had been there. The Air Vice Marshal was about to retire and they reminisced.

"General you have had quite a bit of influence. I notice many training exercises are no longer run like theatre plays; every scene scripted to the last detail."

"I guess that is good. I am going to miss you and all the regiments and officers and men I have worked with."

"They and I will miss you."

Liz was informed that the Parliament had given her a Commendation of Appreciation; and the Queen had signed a Royal Proclamation in appreciation as well.

On 1 October 2017 she stood with the honor guard and relinquished command to newly promoted full Colonel Sam Young.

The day before she had walked around the base one last time and said goodbye to many she had gotten to know so well.

Her Apache had already been sent away to be stripped of its engine and electronics. By the beginning of the year it would be hanging with other very famous aircraft. She had flown it one last time and had found herself crying when she had landed it.

The next day she and her family boarded a C-20 specifically sent for her. The entire Regiment and an Honor Guard from every active British Army and Royal Marine regiment, plus the SAS and SBS lined the runway. She waved as she got into the jet and sat down. She was finding it very hard to not cry.

There were government quarters at Carlisle that they would be staying in. It had been decided that the children would not attend school; James was big for his age and Aliya was already a High School senior. When they got her next posting they would resume schooling at a public school for James and a college for Aliya. Her three good friends from Campbell would be attending the University of Tennessee starting the next year and Liz was sure that was where Aliya would want to go. James would be home schooled for the year. Aliya would be boning up on things ready for college; she had already taken her SATs and had done very well indeed.

Liz was able to put aside her feelings about leaving her Regiment by spending time with her mother and her friends. That helped a lot.

After a week with her mother, Liz went to stay with Maria for a week and see her friends. Just what she needed.

The first night was a Friday night and they had an old fashioned slumber party.

Liz looked around and noted that none of them had appeared to age that much; but then they were all still young. She was the youngest at 34; the rest were only a year or so older.

Tess started first.

"So Liz, how does it feel to be going back to school?"

"Weird. I have been told they are constructing a special curriculum for me. First time that has been done in a long time."

Maria snorted. "They better make it special; I am trying to think of who could be arrogant enough to think they can teach you anything about leadership."

The others laughed at that. Liz smiled in appreciation, but was serious.

"I am going to have to learn how to stand back and send people out to fight and die. Before I was always right there with them; taking the risks. It is going to be very hard for me."

Isabelle smiled softly. "For you it will be. It will be a big adjustment."

Maria smiled then leaned forward. "OK, Liz spill your guts. You must have some real doozies saved up."

The other two leaned forward in anticipation. Liz sighed but decided some things could be said to them.

"Remember just before I went to the 160th I had to rebuild the Campbell ASP and Ordnance company again?"

They all nodded. "Well here is what really happened…"

They were all agog. Maria whistled. "That never got out. Amazing."

Liz shared a few other things but nothing as deep and dark as that. It was a good time and after the emotional leaving of the 161st she needed this.

She spent a couple of days in Nashville visiting the Crew and Posse and had a fun time. When that was done she headed out to get back to her family who had been staying with her mother and Ted. Then they headed to Carlisle. Liz wanted to get in and settle down then look around Gettysburg as she had wanted to for a long time.

Liz looked around as she stood where Pickett's Charge had started and looked towards where its goal had been. She tried to imagine what it must have been like to march towards that point almost a mile away with artillery tearing holes through the formations. She had gone to Little Round Top and looked over that; but this hit much harder. She marveled at their bravery. It was a little known fact that at least one woman had participated in this charge. She and her husband had stayed and fought together for over a year; they were found only a short distance from the objective; the clump of trees. Hand in hand; in death as in life. She looked around and thought about that and many other things.

The VIP quarters at Carlisle were very nice and Liz certainly had no complaints.

She decided to check in; realizing that as a General Officer she needed to do things a little differently she called in and found that the Commanding General wanted to see her at her convenience. THAT was interesting since he was a Major General. She had looked up his record and he had been a grunt; commanded a company and a Battalion. And a brigade in Afghanistan. She had just missed him as she looked at the dates. Well he looked like someone that could teach her some things. She checked what uniform to wear and found that for this she could wear ASU B, with slacks which she liked better.

General Barton was very much looking forward to meeting General Parker. They did not have many students that were Generals. Calling her a student was frankly a little uncomfortable for him. He had had an excellent career but nothing compared to hers. This was going to be a very different situation.

Liz took a deep breath and walked in the main building returning salutes as she walked down the hall. Luckily there were not too many people around as she walked into the main offices. She was quickly escorted right to the Commandants office.

Even though he knew as everyone else did that Elizabeth Parker was small it still amazed him how small. Yet her presence as she walked in the door was undeniable. He had never met the like.

"Sit down, General."

"Thank you, General." And she gave him small smile.

"Absurd. Call me Tom."

"Call me Liz."

They both grinned.

"I missed you by about a month getting in country after you left the second time. Even then I had heard about you. Frankly was hoping they would keep you around. I know you have heard this but it's coming from me as well; it was simply believed that you kept people alive."

Liz blushed slightly. "Thank You Tom. That became a huge burden. Especially my last tour. It got very heavy."

"I cannot imagine. Liz, let's get something straight. I have had a very good career and have done well. But you are someone that is rocket propelled. And you have earned everything you got the hard way. I can speak for myself and if anyone says otherwise in this facility I will have their hide but this is straight. No one here has a thing they can teach you about leadership. We are not even going to try. What we are going to do is interview you intensively and see where you need to learn things. And in the next 10 months we are going to do our best to fill in those gaps."

Liz nodded. "That is good to hear. I know there are a lot of things like systems management and that sort of thing that I need to learn. If I stay in I need to know the lingo and such. I am guessing that I get special treatment not only because of my record but the fact I have no college experience at all."

"That is true. But as it has been made screamingly clear by your record, college is not everything. That mindset was one of the things that needed to be changed and the last SECDEF and the Current one have made that clear. That was one of the reasons I was chosen because I am one of those that think college is not for everyone and there are some leaders such as yourself that are born and you damn well make room in your army for one."

Liz blushed a little more and he grinned.

"You went through OCS and Aviation School then the preparation for SOAR, so frankly to say that you have not gone through higher education is bull. Anyway, if you are willing to start I will have my Chief of Staff arrange the interviews. This will probably take about a week."

Liz blinked at that. "Wow, I guess you are being thorough."

"That is MY job."

And the next day she talked to his Chief of Staff who was a brisk no nonsense type.

"General, it is our job to get you ready for senior commands. Simple as that. We have a responsibility to prepare you and frankly quite a few of us are looking forward to it. Your kind of talent does not come along very often. I look upon you as a blue chip recruit who knows a lot but needs to learn more."

After five days of interviews Liz was a little wrung out but thought they had been really thorough and felt ok with it.

The General chaired the meeting as his entire senior faculty attended.

"OK. Let us get the overview from Colonel Tower."

"General Parker is without serious weakness. Simple as that. She has the entire leadership package in a way that I have not encountered before. It should not be a surprise with her record but still I was. I suggest we give her a basic ground tactics and strategy tutorial, and I am willing to bet she will eat that right up. With the way she came up with tactics in the air I see no reason she cannot do it on the ground. Logistics support and the basics there are next. Realistically there is nothing aviation related that she does not know probably better than anyone here so we will not waste our time. Everyone that interviewed her absolutely agree that we can also ignore all leadership courses. Diplomatic niceties will be something we can brush through with a basic course in. Systems management is the one area she really lacks knowledge in and will need the full course. Now the basic courses as regards sea power I would also recommend. The Joint Services department can handle that. Considering how much she has worked with other nations services that area can also be ignored. That is pretty much it."

The General looked around. "Anything anyone wants to add?"

There were no comments.

"Very well then, Colonel Tower how long will this last?"

"8 months sir."

"Very good. Let us get started – frankly people we might very well be judged by how she does and what she says about us in the future. If something goes wrong I seriously doubt it will be her fault."

Liz would look back and call the next 8 months some of the most exhausting of her life; in some cases tougher than Aviation school was. She was poked and prodded and stretched like salt water taffy sometimes. Sometimes the complexities of Systems management almost beat her; but with her usual grit and fire managed to lick it as well.

Her favorite parts were Ground tactics and strategy and the Applications of Sea Power. Space Command was interesting but not that tough. Diplomacy was almost boring. She had gotten a lot of experience at that as it was. Logistics interested her; but she was frankly of the mind that they took themselves way too seriously when the bottom line was moving item A to point B when it was needed. And have it ready when it was needed. Strategic planning and thinking was interesting; tying what happened in one part of the world with other parts elsewhere. Staff Planning and Management was also interesting but frankly she thought they were a little behind the curve on that one. Too rigid. General Barton had specifically asked her to take notes on what she thought were weaknesses in the courses she was taking and she did.

In late July, General Barton and Colonel Tower reviewed the progress of their prize student.

"Systems management was the one area that she did not do outstanding in; but still very well. Everything else she excelled in. Ground tactics and strategy was an area she really shined in; no surprise since tactical has always been an area she was a master of. Staff planning and management – that area made me think she was humoring us. I will be very interested to read her evaluation there. The rest of the courses extremely well. While perhaps not a 4.0, not far off."

"The Vice Chief of Staff for Personnel wants this evaluation fast; they want to make the pick for her next position soon."

"Any ideas where they are sending her, sir?"

"None. Clearly high profile but I have no idea. Have to assume it is a staff position somewhere but where?"

"SOCOM would love to get her back."

"Forget it; she needs to spend some time back with us regular folk for a while."

The First week in August Liz handed her course evaluations in to the Colonel and later that day he went over them with the General.

"She has a wicked sense of humor; she manages to hide it but these evaluations are funny as all hell."

"But very pointed; and in a couple of places downright brutal. Staff Management really got reamed."

"Not surprising; I think that course needs reorganizing."

Liz was presented with a special Diploma that basically said 'done with her' and that tickled her.

The next week she was summoned to see the Vice Chief of Staff for Personnel.

The Pentagon always depressed her; even with the 50% cuts that had been done 5 years ago she still felt the place was bloated.

General Larson greeted her and had his aide close the door to his office.

"General Parker, your transcript from the War College is rather glowing, but should come as no surprise. I have submitted your name as a candidate for several posts but the Chief of Staff wanted to read this first. He will contact you when he has made a decision."

Liz raised an eyebrow. "Is that the usual procedure, Sir."

"No it is not but you are not the usual brigadier so it is not that surprising. I have no doubt each of the major commands have put in a bid to grab you for their own so he might be doing some horse trading."

Liz sighed. "So I might have my teeth examined?"

He cracked a smile. "Would not surprise me. But I would expect a decision within a few days."

3 days later she was called back to the Commandants office. He handed her a message.

"This surprises me, but then maybe not."

Liz looked at the message and it announced that Elizabeth Parker, Brigadier General (P) was nominated for command of the 101st Airborne Division.

Her mouth dropped open and she looked at the General and he grinned. "The Alternate promotion board was going to do it but the regular one beat them to the punch. I think they are trying to show that they get it."

Liz was in a bit of a daze as she got back to her quarters. Max had been working part time at the War College in their library; he liked it there. Aliya had been accepted to the University of Tennessee and was due to start there in a few weeks and she was spending the weekend with Susan in Nashville to figure things out. James was playing with some of the kids of some of the other officers who were taking classes there. They had in the end sent him to school there at the college which was set up for this.

Max saw Liz come in and went to her.

"Honey, what is it?"

She blinked and looked at him.

"I am the next commander of the 101st Airborne. I am getting my second star in October and assuming command then."

Max was dumbfounded.

Liz took two weeks leave and spent it with her mother and her friends then saw Aliya installed at the University of Tennessee. Her three old friends were all there as well so it was like homecoming for Aliya and Liz was glad to see it.

Max had contacted the contractor he had worked with before at Campbell and got hired on as supervisor of their airfield maintenance crew. Liz had been told that her appointment would be announced on September 1, with change of Command October 1. She would formally get her second star September 30 at a ceremony at SOCOM HQ in Florida.

The Commanding Generals house at Campbell was quite plush; Liz was amused at it; it was really almost a museum as well. Way too big for just her, Max and James. They got James enrolled in school; he would be starting 3rd grade. He was an outgoing cheerful sort and Liz was glad; being an Army brat he needed to be.

Liz decided to seek out and talk to the 101st General who had been in command when the ASP mess had hit. She wanted to talk to a division commander who had been there and done that.

Retired Major General Al Watson had not gone to work for a Defense Contractor; he did not need the money and frankly liked to golf; besides he did not like contractors on general principals. So when he got a call from General Parker wanting to talk to him he was intrigued.

He had retired to Florida near Jacksonville. His wife worked part time as a volunteer and he was slowly working on a book about army life. He was content so when he opened the door and saw the petite figure of the former Major Parker he was very interested in what she had to say.

"First off since I am no longer in call me Al, and everyone I have heard about says you like to be called Liz."

"Works for me Al."

"So why are you here talking to an old retired general?"

"You commanded a division. Specifically the 101st. On 1 October I take command. I need to talk to someone who has been there and done that."

He sat back and blinked. This was unusual; not often someone who has been only in aviation gets command of a Division. But then she was not just someone.

"This is a test for you. To see if you can make the transition. Many very good commanders at lower levels do not do as well once they reach brigade or Division command. And so on. They want to find out."

"Probably. Makes sense. Anyway I needed to talk to a former division commander and I thought of you."

"Why me? I was not exactly considered a success since I was retired right after that command."

"And we both know why. The ones to blame in that fiasco besides the four criminals was the G4 and former Base Commander who SHOULD have caught it. You and the others were collateral damage. Same with the SF G4 who also should have caught it. Those three should have been the ones to carry the can. Instead they got you and the current Base Commander, the CID Commander and the SF commander. And that was really not correct."

"That is the way the system works."

"Bullshit. I have seen other screw-ups that did not take that kind of toll. Not as bad but still some went out smelling like a rose when they should not have."

"Too high level. I understood at the time. Still do. Accountability needed to go higher; did not matter that I did not know; I should have been in better contact with my soldiers. If I had I would have suspected something. My Advice to you is to do what I have heard you did while commanding the 161st and while being that Brigade Commander in Afghanistan. Poke around and talk to the grunts down at the real work areas."

"Technically I was Brigade XO."

"To turn it back on you, Bullshit. You commanded that Brigade and everyone knows it."

"OK. But I need more advice than that."

"As a division commander you do have to step back most of the time; you cannot be as hands on as you were. My mistake was that I got caught up in all the meetings and BS at HQ and never really got around to talk to people. You have to strike a balance. You are much more likely to do that too much then not enough. So you will have to watch it. In one respect it will be easier since you probably will not see any of your brigades deploy unless something comes up. It has been only 5 years since we were deploying one or two brigades if not the whole division. Constantly. That was a huge problem for a division commander. I personally think that if we get into that situation again something has to be done better than we did last time."

"Like what?"

"To start with, deploy a whole division if you can; do not take one brigade out of three different divisions. I think that was a mistake. I know why they did it but it was still a mistake. Or if you cannot do that have one brigade at a time relieve the next; continuity is the key. We never had that. You never knew if you were going to Iraq or Afghanistan or where in which place."

Liz was thoughtful. She had not really thought about it but he was right. This was the sort of thing she had to learn.

"I had not thought of that but you are right. This is an example of why I wanted to talk to you. I need to get a wider view of things and I really had not figured that out."

"You would have."

"Maybe not in time enough to not make a big mistake. I have been very lucky in my commanders. There never has been one I did not respect or learn something from."

"You were lucky. But then again I can only recall a couple that I did not respect so I guess maybe the situation was not as bad as we thought it was."

"True. But then again I was really with pretty elite units for most of my career; so maybe I have not seen the whole picture."

"You have seen the worst. The ASP mess and that NG brigade fiasco. So I don't think you have had exactly as easy a path as some might think."

Liz nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe. What do you think of the latest reorganization plan?"

He snorted. "About time. The whole idea that we were going to a brigade structure with divisions and corps as coat holders was dumb. It was a misreading of the situation that we found ourselves in with Iraq and Afghanistan going on at the same time. What that ended up doing was putting the brigades out there without enough oversight; and that is never good. For a while there I heard from some of the other Generals I knew who commanded divisions; they felt that they had very little control and could not do much to fix problems. It took the army years to figure that out."

Liz nodded. There indeed had been some problems; and finally just little more than a year ago it was admitted and the DOD had ordered the Army to get its act back together. Brigades would still be able to deploy separately, but they would still be firmly tethered by their division commands. The Sustainment Brigades had been reformed and were once again a division asset. That way they could deploy more with a brigade if it needed it; instead of the brigade having to make do with what it had originally. Depending on where the brigade went that could have a big effect on its ability to maintain itself and its capability. That of course put more pressure on Division Command to make the call correctly; but that is the way it should be.

"I guess I should be grateful; there is nothing worse than seeing something going wrong and not being able to do a thing about it."

They talked for more than two hours and the General's wife got in and was surprised to see who he was talking to.

"My stars, you are tiny!"

Al laughed hard. "That is what just about everyone thinks the first time they meet her. At least until she whaps them upside the head with a 2 X 4."

Liz really enjoyed that time and stayed for dinner after Jenny, his wife, insisted.

She left that evening realizing she had made two more friends; that made it a very good day.

Two days later the announcement was made and it generated a fair amount of comment.

"Today the Department of Defense announced that Brigadier General Elizabeth Parker will be promoted to Major General and will assume command of the 101st Airborne Division based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. General Parker is perhaps the most famous current military officer due to her exploits in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. She returns to Fort Campbell after a previous assignment there while first as a member of the 101st Aviation Brigade and later as part of the 160th SOAR before she stood up and commanded the 161st SOAR in Scotland. General Parker has a number of firsts and this is another; the first woman Commander of a US Army Division."

The outgoing general who would be moving to deputy commander of the XVIII Airborne Corps had gotten notified some time earlier but had kept quiet. His deputy commanders came in to talk to him.

"Sir, have you heard?"

"Of course. You two better have your chin straps tight or Doberman will bite your heads off."

The two brigadier generals look at each other than at him.

"Sir is she coming in to clean house?"

"Because that frankly is her rep. They bring her in to start new units or clean up old ones in trouble."

"Not as far as I know. She is the rising star of the US Military and this is a fairly high profile position. Makes sense to me. Now you two will find yourselves in deep shit if you screw up. You might remember that."

Liz had told the Posse and Crew at a get together about her new command and they had laughed their asses off.

"First time that I wish I was back in to watch you tear a whole division a new one."

Said Vicki.

"I am willing to bet there are a number of officers scared shitless right now."

Said Ellen.

"You guys make me sound like Attila the Hun. I am not that bad."

Which got a round of even bigger laughs.

Maria and the others were also laughing.

"Chica, those poor troopers have no idea what is about to hit them."

Liz looked over the command situation; she would inherit the staff; due to illness the last general had come in mid-way and had changed out the staff last year. So they would be settled in. She would see if they were good enough; Liz was determined to make sure that she accepted nothing less than the best.

Brigadier General Anthony Roberts was deputy division commander for Operations and senior to Brigadier General Adam Jones who was deputy commander for Support. Colonel Jack Forrest was Chief of Staff. She noted that the Division Sergeant Major was retiring. And that a new one had not been appointed. She sat back and thought then made a call.

Command Sgt Major Sid Winston answered his phone. As the Sgt Major of the 1 St Aviation Brigade at Ft Riley he was fairly busy. He had come to the Brigade three years ago after being promoted from Battalion Sgt Major to Brigade Sgt Major. This was not a bad posting but sometimes he felt he wanted more.

"Sgt Major Winston."

"Yo, Sid. How is your hammer hanging?" Came a familiar female voice.

A big grin came out.

"Well, short stuff. Heard you are getting the 101st."

"Shore enough. I need a Division Sgt Major. Interested?"

Sid blinked. He would normally have another few years before rating a division posting. But then she tended to get what she wanted.

"Why not? Kind of miss the strange and weird that is Campbell."

"Good. I am inheriting the rest of the staff so I want at least one there that knows me and what I expect. And who can keep his eyes and ears open."

"Well then, General, you have yourself a Sgt Major."

"Good. I will talk to whoever and get your orders cut ASAP. How long would it take you?"

"Two weeks."

"Good. See ya."

Nancy, Sid's wife, knew something was up as soon as he came through the door.

"OK. What is the what?"

"Liz Parker just asked me to be her Division Sgt Major."

"Wow. You are not due for a few years."

"That has never stopped her. I said we can get there in two weeks, in time for the change of command."

"No problem, but will the orders come that fast?"

"With her, definitely."

Liz called the personnel section and made it clear she wanted those orders cut immediately.

"General, it is not that simple."

"Yes it is. Make it happen."

"What is it?"

"General Parker wants this guy as her division sgt major."

"So what is the problem?"

Liz made a point of not wandering around the 101st before her assumption of command. She thought that was impolite and since they were not at war at the moment not necessary. However she had no compunctions about visiting others there.

"Holy Shit! Look who is coming."

"Get in there and warn everyone Doberman is prowling."

Liz walked in the HQ of the 160th and looked around. "At ease, you rotorheads."

She headed into the Commanders office and found him on the phone; she walked in as he was looking at something behind him and he put the phone down to realize she was sitting at the chair in front of his desk. He started to stand and she waved him down.

"Joe, take it easy. This is not official; I am just wandering around reacquainting myself. Nuts when you were in my Battalion you were not worried about appearances so why worry now?"

"That was then and this is now that is why. I mean you have to start getting dignity somewhere. I chose here."

"Oh, well if that is what floats your boat. How are you doing?"

"Getting used to it. But unlike you I really cannot keep flying which sucks. How in the world did you manage to do it?"

"Well to start with I was in Scotland and that helped; then I had a top XO who was a great ADMIN guy who took care of a lot of that. And finally since I was the one that stood it up I could do pretty much what I wanted. But I was really lucky in a lot of ways."

"I guess. But then you remember the fun and games here a couple years ago."

"Well that is what happens when you get a dud commander; the whole unit goes down the Calcutta Crapper. But you guys got it together in the end."

"Yeah after you kicked our butts hard enough. Actually that is what ended up putting me here; your evaluation pushed me up to Major faster than what it would have been; then when the last commander went bad I got picked and groomed for this. I really doubted I had the experience; luckily working under the old man for almost a year helped a lot. We are in good shape; I got a training officer almost as mean as you and that is what is important when you are not getting shot at."

"Way too many people do not get how important training officers are."

"Well that is not a problem here. So you just visiting or looking to poach?"

"Already did that to the 1st Aviation Brigade at Riley; I took their sgt major for the division. Sid Winston."

"You really want a mean one."

"With no deployments likely any time soon, this division will get soft if it is not pushed in training and otherwise; I can do the training part but a top Sgt Major is vital to keeping people on their toes. As long as it is a Sgt Major who realizes that is important and his job. I know some do not get that."

"Yeah, the Sgt Major we got right after you left was not a good one. We wanted to get Sid but he got snapped up after he left the command sgt major school."

"So have the fly boys got over being butt stroked yet?"

"Nope. The Swab Jockeys wanted to take us on a carrier and do it in the middle of the ocean but SOCOM told them to get stuffed. Fly boys are just pouting."

Liz stuck around a while to talk then headed over to 5th Group.

She noted they were not as surprised; word must have gotten around.

The Group Commander greeted her.

"So general, want to look at our ASP?"

Liz grinned. "Why not?"

The Group commander was rather fiendish as he had not warned the ASP.

They walked in and pretty much panicked them. Liz grinned evilly and asked to see the SOP's. Then asked some tough questions. They seemed reasonably competent and Liz got no bad vibes. She then asked to see their Cat 1 mags.

They looked good and she noted that all the Cat 1 rds were banded to pallets.

She looked around. "Looks pretty good. When were you last inspected?"

"6 months ago. From what I understand they took your suggestions to heart and now have random inspections with only a month of warning."

Liz was glad to hear that; she was certain that lack of oversight contributed significantly to problems in support units. Just like in line units.

"So she is poking around the 160th and 5th Group."

"Yes sir."

"But not any part of the 101st?"

"No sir."

"That is very polite of her."

"Yes sir."

Liz got permission to fly her family to see her get promoted in Florida.

It was a fairly short ceremony but a few of her friends made it including a certain congressman.

"So, how do you like staying in?'

"It seems like it will be OK. We shall see down the road but so far so good. I read where you are thinking of retiring?"

"Been in Congress 24 years. Thinking about it but probably not yet."

"I have to admit knowing you were around has helped. Probably kept some people off of my back as well."

"Could be. But I doubt you need my help anymore. You have reached the level where you have clout of your own not connected to anyone else."

"I am not going to be falsely modest; I know that is true. Well I am determined to go as far as I can without selling out. So far I have been able to."

"I hope that you can keep that up."

Nancy brushed some tears from her eyes and leaned against Ted.

"Sometimes I cannot believe what has happened in her life.

"She can't either."

Meanwhile in Hollywood there was a push to have a bio made on Elizabeth Parker. The anti-military crowd did not like it but the women's groups did. The problem they all had was that she refused to talk to reporters and that gave them little to build on.

"Before we can do it well we need to be able to have a long talk with her. Have you tried talking to her friends?"

"They are all ex-military and will not give us the time of day. Let's face it; the Military hates our guts and spits on us every chance they get and who can blame them after the way Hollywood has treated them over the years. For every Saving Private Ryan there are two or three others that trash them. And for those that say so what, how many bios are made of Hollywood? The few that have been are usually white washes."

"I don't care about the past. This woman has an incredible story that is begging to be told. The real military haters have tried to find something bad on her and they have never been able to get a thing. I mean ZERO, NADA, NOTHING. No one should be this clean but she is."

"Yeah. I am trying to remember who it was; one of the morons that used to hang around that fat slob Michael Moore, I think. Anyway he really tried his hardest to dig up dirt on her and could find nothing at all. Spent almost a year on it back in 2015 and came up with nothing. Heard someone talking about it and he was just about ready to be committed he was so depressed. He was so sure that no Hero is really a hero; they are all druggies or child abusers or racists or something like that. Then he finds out that she is the real deal. And what was worse for him was that he came across others who were almost as clean. Just blew his whole world view. Don't think he has worked since."

"Hollywood is so hung up on the so called flawed hero's that are so messed up they should never be outside of an asylum that when a real one comes along we cannot handle it."

The next day in a fairly elaborate ceremony Major General Elizabeth Parker assumed command of the 101st Airborne Division. That afternoon she scheduled a series of meetings with the officers and enlisted men of each brigade over the next week. Starting the next day at 0800 and going every two hours; officers first then enlisted men next. 7 brigades plus the Headquarters Battalion meant 16 meetings. She had 4 per day for 4 days. Then she proceeded to look around the entire divisional area. From the ASP to the Aviation Brigade to the Comm Center and everything between. This took another 3 days. Everywhere she went she had a staff officer taking notes.

The meetings Liz conducted were get to know you type meetings; she made it plain that she would have occasional bitch sessions for them to air their gripes.

"The 101st has a record second to none. It is my job to keep that up. I will do whatever is necessary. But I have to know about problems in order to fix them. For the enlisted men Command Sergeant Major Winston is your contact. For officers my Chief of Staff Colonel Forrest. They will both have open door policies. Let me make one thing very clear. Mistakes will be made by everyone including me; as long as we learn from them we will be OK. But anyone that repeats a mistake is on his way out. And this above all I want you to think about. Anyone that lies to me is gone immediately. Anyone that covers something up will not only be gone but if I have anything to do with it will do time. Good day and dismissed."

After thoroughly going through the installation and all the attached units, Liz then called a meeting of all Brigade Commanders, plus the commander of the Headquarters Battalion. 1-4 Brigades, the 101st and 159th Aviations Brigades, and the 101st Sustainment Brigade. Her staff as well. She looked around the room and thought just how far she had come from that first day of Basic Training. Then shook it off and got done to business.

"As I told the units, my goal is to have the best division in the World. Not just the US Army. To do that means that is has to be ready. At all times. First thing on the agenda is that we make sure we all know which Brigade is the Alert Brigade when. With no deployments in the future as far as we can tell at this time, as of next month the 2nd BCT will be the alert brigade. The 101st and 159th will trade off being the Aviation Alert Brigade. Any questions?"

There was a bit of a stir and finally the 1st BCT commander spoke.

"General, with the exception of deployments, the 1st has been the Alert Brigade for over 15 years."

"So?"

He did not know how to respond to that.

Liz saw the looks around the table and decided to have mercy on them.

"We share the load. Each Brigade will spend 3 months on Alert status and 9 months off. That will be the predictable part of this situation. What will not be predictable are the no notice inspections I will be doing as well as no notice exercises. Those of course will be for the non alert brigades. But I will stage some for the Alert Brigades as well. The difference will be that you guys will get a 24 hr notice. Being on alert should have some bennies."

She looked at her watch. "And as of right now the 1st BCT has 24 hours notice that there will be an exercise. One hour prior to the start you will get the mission statement."

There were more looks around the room; akin to 'What are we going to do?'.

She looked around the room. "Anyone who wants a transfer out of this division will get it no questions asked. That will be the divisional policy."

She then went down a list of things she expected of them. She ended the meeting 30 minutes later. She got up and walked out of the room leaving them all there standing. Finally the Deputy Division commanders looked at each other and both said. "Oh, shit."

As promised the 1 BCT got its exercise that put it in choppers and moved them to the training site where a battalion of the 4th BCT was dug in waiting for them.

The exercise lasted until dark when Liz called it off. The 1st BCT, in the opinion of the umpires Liz had in place, had not completely dislodged the Battalion. Liz told everyone to get back and get rest; at 0800 the 1st BCT would get its critique.

The Amphitheater had been built so that a whole brigade could fit in it. Liz walked out at exactly 0800 as the Brigade jumped to its feet.

"Be seated."

She looked around at them.

"You did not stink. That is about the best I can say. You certainly did not perform like the Alert Brigade should; let alone like a brigade of the 101st should. You had over 8 hours to dislodge that battalion and you did not get it done. You were sloppy and uncoordinated. Needless to say there will be another quite soon. Your Brigade commander will now take over." And she walked out.

"She certainly hit the ground running."

"Yes sir."

"Why was the 1st BCT the only one on alert?"

"Only answer I can find was tradition."

"Well it was a dumb one."

"Yes sir."

The XVIII Airborne Corps commander sat back and mused. "She certainly is shaking things up. You can hear the cries and screams from there already."

"Yes sir. I think it is safe to say they will not be complacent."

After Liz left the Brigade Commander slowly walked to the podium.

"Not much to say, is there people? I have to disagree with the General. We did stink. She was being nice to us, since this was the first time with her. I can tell you people one thing for certain. You will be working for a while."

The two Deputy Commanders sucked it up and went into the General's office. Liz nodded to them as they took the bare chairs sitting in front of her desk. Gone were the plush ones of the past. Another indication that this was a new regime.

"I cut the two of you out for a simple reason. I wanted to see how everyone would react. That will not happen again. But I want to make one thing clear; if I find out that news of a no notice gets out I will have someone's head. There will be no second chances. There are some things I will not give anyone a second chance on and that is one. Now onto business. What did you two think of the exercise?'

Operations was first. "You said it, sir. Sloppy and uncoordinated. I was very surprised at that."

Support nodded. "They were not ready sir. They were ready to move but they were not ready to fight. They did not have the time they usually have while deploying to plan and get ready and it showed."

"And now you know the purpose of the no notice."

They both nodded. "In the future it will be operations duty to coordinate the no notice and the 24 hour notice exercises. But mark this: I will have people watching to make sure no friends get warning calls. If that happens whoever does the calling is out of this division that same day. No appeals, no reprieves. Is that understood?"

"Yes sir."

A while later Sid came in and closed the door.

"So put the fear of Doberman into those two yet?"

She grinned. An impartial observer would have noted blood dripping from her fangs.

"I think they do now. So what did you think of that exercise?"

"For a pretty simple and basic one I was surprised they did not do better. But that battalion had done a very good job of preparing and picked the best ground around for a defensive stand."

"I agree. That is why they will get a 3 day holiday from duty starting tomorrow. I will announce it when I speak to them in an hour."

Sid blinked then grinned. "Now that is motivation."

"Ya."

They both grinned then Liz got serious.

"Overall is this division as soft as I think it is?"

"Yes. I think it is clear why they sent you. The very interesting part is that no one I know of suspected it was soft."

Liz walked into the critique of the 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, 4th BCT and nodded at them. "Be seated."

She looked around. "Damn good job. Any nits I pick would be frankly bitching just to be bitching. So this is what I am going to do. From Midnight tonight for 72 hours this battalion is off duty. Have fun people."

They jumped up and yelled "Currahee!" And she waved and walked out.

The first two weeks set the tone. One week later Liz let operations set up another 24 hr exercise; this time with the 2nd Battalion of the 506th. The 1st BCT did much better and dislodged the battalion after 6 hours; destroying it by the umpires judgment. Liz walked into the critique.

"Not all there yet but a huge improvement. 1st BCT will get a 48 hour no duty period next month once you are off alert status. Choose when and you will get it."

She went to the 2nd Battalions critique. "You did well against a unit that was butt hurt and wanted revenge. You still held for 6 hours against 3-1 odds. During daytime. So you will get 48 hours off starting midnight tonight.

The Battalion, stunned that they were getting props, yelled "Currahee!"

Liz every month went through the division building by building. Poking her head in and talking to people. Sid acted as her Deep Throat and warned her of problems. She wasted no time in rousting the Sustainment Brigade transportation Battalion for low operational status. She made it clear to the Battalion and Brigade commander that they had 30 days to make it better or they were both out.

Three months in she was talking to Sid.

"OK, how are things going?"

"Much better but not all there yet. We have some dead wood to chop."

"They got better but they are slipping again, right?" referring to the Transportation Battalion.

"Yes, sir."

"The Battalion commander?"

"And two of the company commanders. Just not going to cut it."

"I had hoped they would shape up, but so be it. I want to give the Brigade commander a little more time to do it himself; and the Deputy for Sustainment to push it. If they don't then they are gone as well."

Sid sighed. Liz was hard core, but right.

"I have been approached to run a divisional exercise against the Big Red One at the NTC."

"Wow. That is major league.'

"Yep. They want to do it in 90 days."

"I imagine the ops guys will shit a brick with that little warning but I agree."

"That is why they are only going to get 30 days. I got FORSCOM to agree."

Looking at Sid she had to smile. She remembered the meeting the day before with FORSCOM. It had been her, XVIII Airborne Corps commander and FORSCOM and TRADOC. TRADOC started it.

"General Parker, it has been proposed to have a divisional exercise at the NTC with the 101st and 1st ID. We are looking at scheduling it for June."

Liz looked at them. "How about 30 days notice, sir?"

He looked at her as did the others. "30 Days?"

"Sir, with the exception of the second Iraq campaign, when have we gotten 90 days warning of anything? 30 days even but I am trying to be reasonable."

XVIII was grinning at the other two. He was the only one there not surprised by her response. TRADOC shook his head. "That is too short."

Liz looked at him. "Why?"

He opened his mouth then closed it. FORSCOM had a small smile. "I agree, 30 days." Leaving TRADOC with nothing to say.

Liz then pushed it. "Sir, I request that this not be mentioned outside of this room until the 30 days. If we are going to be serious it cannot leak; it would defeat the whole purpose." She was addressing this to FORSCOM since it was his office. He nodded, as did XVIII and finally TRADOC, who still looked gob smacked. The meeting was over shortly after and TRADOC left first. The other two looked at Liz.

"I do not think he was prepared for this." Came from FORSCOM.

"I KNOW he was not prepared for this." Came from XVII.

"Will he keep his mouth shut?" was Liz's blunt question. FORSCOM nodded.

"He will. It would be his ass if he blabs. Frankly I do not think he is the man for that job."

Sid took a minute to adjust and then smiled softly. "From what I have heard TRADOC must have had a cow with a virtual no warning like that. To him 30 days notice is no warning."

"FORSCOM flat out said he does not think he is the man for the job."

"From what I have heard and seen that is true."

The next week Liz decided to talk to someone about her problem.

"General Watson, I have a problem and I need the advice of someone who has been in command of a division recently."

"That was some years ago."

"Maybe so but you were there. Here is my problem. The sustainment brigades Transportation battalion has two week company commanders. Neither the Battalion, Brigade or Deputy for Support has taken action. I raised hell when I first took over about low operational status and things got better for a while then are falling back. This has been going on for almost 2 months. I am about to chop all of them but I wanted your advice before I got out my ax."

"You are absolutely certain about this?'

"Yes sir."

He sighed. "Then you really have no choice, do you?"

"I was going to do it but I guess I still have a little doubt about being a divisional commander."

"From everything I have heard you are doing a superb job. Better than I did easily. No time for doubts; if you have a weakness and those above them know about it and have not taken action then you really have no choice."

"Thank You General."

Liz put down the phone and made a call to the XVIII.

"General Johnson, I have a problem."

XVIII put down his phone and thought for a moment then called in his Chief Of Staff. When he came in and closed the door at a motion from the General he sat down and waited with expectation.

"General Parker is going to roll her Deputy Assistant Division Commander for Support, her Sustainment Brigade Commander, her Transportation Battalion Commander, and two Transportation company commanders. They have a weakness down there and there has been nothing done about it. They know about it since she raised hell about it the first month; it got better but is sinking again. Low operational status."

"My God. Everything we have heard says that division is doing so well."

"Yes in its combat areas. But you know a lot of times that is where the weakness of good divisions usually are. But she certainly is taking action. And justifiably so; the status is clearly not good and has been sinking lately."

"So what do we do?"

"She wanted transfers rather than relief for cause. Though in this case everyone will know it's one and the same."

"Maybe she is getting soft?" clearly sarcasm.

"Not likely. So I need you to see what is available for them."

"Yes sir. Will get right on it."

3 days later he came in. "I have the positions for them sir. Overall not too bad."

"Best we can do. Let her know."

Liz looked at the message and took a deep breath and called in her Chief of Staff.

"General, you wanted to see me?" It paid to be careful around her in unexpected situations; she was always testing you then.

She handed him the messages. "See that these transfers are ready for my signature by 1700 today." He looked at them and his mouth dropped wide open; he looked at her and saw a hard caste to her face, then he nodded and went out to get it done.

He got it done by 1300 and she took the transfers and headed out. The Deputy for Ops looked at him as he saw the General walking out with papers.

"What is up?"

"She is handing transfer papers to …."

"My god."

"She gave them a chance and they did not get it done. She did not relieve them for cause as she could have."

"Not like this is not the same thing in all but name."

"Warning for us as well."

"Yeah."

Liz walked down the hall returning salutes and walked into the Deputy Assistant Division Commander for Support office. His secretary stood up. "General?"

"Is he in and alone?" "Yes sir." Then Liz walked into his office. He jumped up.

"General, what is it?"

Then she handed the paper to him. "You took no action. I have no choice."

Then walked out. She went to the Sustainment Brigade's office and did the same; then went to the battalion, then the companies. By the time she got to the Company they knew and just bowed their heads as they took their transfer papers.

Needless to say this hit the division like the proverbial ton of bricks; multiple grand piano's dropped on their heads.

"A General, Full Colonel, Lt Colonel, 2 captains all in about an hour. She walked into each of their offices and handed them their transfer papers."

"Well, no one can say she does not do her own dirty work."

"Yeah."

Liz came back to the office noticing that it was very vacant. She could see people spot her at a distance then all but run away. She sighed; but that was the way it was. She stopped by the Chief of Staff's office. His secretary looked at her with terrified eyes. She just walked in and shut the door.

Jack Forrest had had a very good career; for the first time he was in fear of it.

"Have you made out orders giving their deputies authority for acting?"

"In the process now, sir."

"Good. Schedule interviews with each for tomorrow one hour apart. Not the two company XO's. The rest of them." Then she walked out.

The word spread beyond the division quickly, as one could expect. Shock and Awe was probably the first reactions; then gladness that the person thinking about it was not part of the 101st. Those who remembered her from the 160th and 101st Aviation were not terribly surprised.

In bases around the country the word slowly spread of the Thursday Afternoon Massacre (or Doberman's Rampage). Then elsewhere as things tend to do inside the military.

Jim Harkness, about to leave to assume command of Fort Hood, as Base Commander, sighed. He knew how hard that must have been for Liz. He had gotten his Birds, no doubt due to her recommendations and evaluations, just a month ago. He looked at the 161st Commander.

"That was hard for her."

"Yeah. And you know she did it herself."

To say that this happening increased the pucker factor for the 101st Division is to say the Pacific Ocean is wide and deep.

Meanwhile Liz kept the pressure up with more no notice exercises for all but the alert units. But it was noticeable that all Brigades began to do better. Liz certainly noticed that there was visibly more effort being put in.

Finally on 1 May she put out the 30 day notice that a divisional exercise would take place at the NTC vs the 1st ID. Normally a light airborne division vs a Heavy Division is not much of a fight; but in this case it was designed as a maneuver exercise which evened the odds some. The 1st ID would have to be considered the favorite which suited Liz fine. In holding with her views, there was very little put out about what was going to happen; just that they had to get to the NTC and be ready for a week's full bore war.

Everything indicated that the 1st ID was indeed caught by surprise. The Division would have to more little of its heavy weapons as the NTC had a permanent set for a division. Liz decided that to do things right would take both offensive and defensive scenarios. All about moving and maneuvering. At 1300 on 1 May she had all the brigade commanders in. The Sustainment Brigade acting Commander had been doing a good job; she was looking at making his appointment official and permanent after the exercise if he did well. She had also allowed the Deputy to the Assistant Division Commander for Support to continue in his acting capacity; she was less sure about keeping him but would wait for the conclusion of the exercise.

"Sam, she flat out told me the decision on whether I keep the position would not be made until after the exercise. That can only mean if I can do well there I keep the job."

"Probably. But it could also mean that she is ready to cut you loose but will give you one more chance."

"That is possible. But everything I hear about her is if you get it done you stay."

"True. So you do have a shot."

The Deputy Assistant Division Commander, Operations, understood that his career might ride on this exercise. She was letting him plan it mostly; while giving some input. He had never felt pressure like this before. They were going up against a heavy division so the odds were already against them. The only way they could even that out was to maneuver faster and better; and to use their extra Aviation Brigade. The General was doing most of her input in that area; which was natural since she was an aviator.

Liz had gotten a lot of tutelage on ground combat and maneuver since she took over the 161st. She had learned a lot and the brigade commanders were surprised at her insight. After the meeting a couple were talking to each other.

"You sure she never had a ground command? "

"Her only time on the ground was when she was an 89B. Rotorhead ever since."

"Well she picked up a lot somewhere."

Liz was surprised how well she could read and interpret the ground maneuvers; somehow all the time in Afghanistan must have helped. They had gotten a copy of the 1st ID's maneuver procedures and gambled they would not change much for this exercise. The Brigade commanders and Liz brainstormed on how to confuse and befuddle them.

"OK. Clearly we do not want to try anything head on into their tank brigades or into their heavy weapons. But hitting them from the flank or rear is another story. We need to use our aviation assets to even the odds. If we lose 75% of the division and take down them that is a victory in this exercise. So we need to be ruthless. We need to obscure their recon and surveillance assets as much as possible. Our geek squads need to look at jamming and the like. As far as I am concerned there is nothing not on the table. Sneaky, devious, cheating, nothing is banned."

The 1st Brigade mused. "Actually I would rather attack then defend. Defending means they know where you are and with their muscle advantage we are in deep shit if we try and hold a position."

Liz nodded. "True. In that case it is a matter of causing the maximum number of casualties before being destroyed ourselves if we cannot retreat."

She looked around the table. "That is the name of this game people; destroy as much of the enemy as we can before being destroyed ourselves. Our mindset going in should be that this is happening on American Soil. We have been invaded and we are willing to die if it means taking them with us. That is not something that is done on these kinds of exercises and that is wrong. That will be our biggest edge."

The 1st ID staff was scrambling to adjust to such a short notice operation with no real guidelines. Their general was not happy.

"This is all her idea. Short notice and virtually no directions."

His brigade commanders looked at each other and kept silent.

"All right. We have the power edge. We will use it. Hammer them and hammer them. They are a light division; they cannot match us. They will try and bob and weave and not let us get in good shots. We will use our advantage to the maximum."

Once again his brigade commanders stayed quiet.

Liz had asked that the 101st start out on offense. That was granted. So they went with their maneuver and movement scenario.

This exercise was being watched by more than a few. FORSCOM, TRADOC, CENTCOM, EUCOM and others got the predator feed.

At the end of 18 hrs the first scenario was over. 101st won by a narrow margin; but the casualty factor was decidedly in the 101st's favor.

Ist ID general was not happy.

"You all knew that they would be using maneuver and you still let them get away with it." One of the Brigade commanders had the guts to respond.

"They were much more aggressive than we planned for. More Reckless than we expected."

"Well big surprise. They have to take risks. We do not. So do better."

FORSCOM looked at his deputy. "She did very well in that first day; used their advantages as well as you could. I wonder if the 1st ID will adjust."

His deputy was pokerfaced. "Sir, I doubt it. He likes to bull ahead using speed and power, not maneuver. He might just play right into her hands."

The next day the 101st was moved to a position and told to defend it. Liz then pushed the umpires on what they were defending and they agreed that it was a blocking position. So she worked with her people to make it a fighting retreat to a certain point then basically do an Alamo.

That ended at 12 hours with the total destruction on the 101st but 90% of the 1st ID went down. Technically the 1st ID won but once again as regards practical accomplishment enough of the 159th survived that the remainder of the 1st ID would not move any further so overall it was a tie; since the 1st ID had a larger force, they actually lost more personnel and virtually all of their heavy weapons.

In a real war it would have been considered a victory for the 101st.

Once again FORSCOM looked at his deputy. "Talk about a pyrrhic victory."

"If that, sir. Overall the 101st won again."

The 1st ID general was truly steaming. He knew he was losing and that frosted him totally.

"No fooling around this time. We stay in place and use our power to attrit them to the point we can counter attack."

The third of 4 scenarios was a decisive win for the 101st as they broke through and fragmented the 1st ID, their communications jamming and the like finishing the job. The 101st lost 60%, but the 1st ID lost 90% and was unable to hold.

The last scenario was one in which the 101st was holding a position and in this case Liz took a chance. She had her sustainment and support units dig in and used her aviation assets and maneuver battalions to virtually surround the attacking 1st ID, like a pack of wolves tearing at a lion from all sides.

Livid, the 1st ID filed a complaint, complaining that training rules had been violated. His brigade commanders could not believe it.

The head of the NTC looked at his staff. "Were there any safety violations?"

"No sir; it got close in a couple of areas but no safety violations."

"What about the jamming of communications?"

"Emergency and medical frequencies were not interfered with."

"His complaint about violating training procedures?"

"Without merit."

FORSCOM was talking to CENTCOM and EUCOM.

"I cannot believe he actually filed a formal complaint."

"The dumbest thing he could have done. He got his butt kicked and now he is claiming that she cheated."

The collective out brief was very tense. Liz kept an impassive face as the NTC commander informed the general that his complaint had been rejected. They left soon afterwards. Once everyone got home Liz informed the whole Division that they had the next week off, she had arranged for the 82nd to cover the alert brigade requirements, agreeing sometime in the future to return the favor. Liz listened to the happy calls and cheerful talk of her division; they knew they had really won a big one. And she smiled.

When the Division got back to Campbell, Liz had gathered them all on the parade field. Using the PA system there she gave them the word.

"Screaming Eagles just kicked butt. I want to congratulate the Deputy Division Commander for Operations for doing most of the planning. The Aviation Brigades for evening the odds. And who says Sustainment means just hauling supplies? You dug in and made it count. The Maneuver brigades rang rings around them. OK, people, you have 7 days off duty starting now. Get outta here."

It would be understating to say that parade field cleared very quickly. Liz went to her quarters and just relaxed with her family.

The results of this exercise proceeded to reverberate around the US Army. The fact that an airborne division, a light division, basically kicked around a Heavy Division shook some very widely held beliefs. The tread heads were horrified; worried that this would be used to try and get rid of more tanks. Those who believed in lighter forces were overjoyed. Bean counters liked the fact that light divisions were cheaper than heavy divisions. FORSCOM and XVIII Airborne Corps talked about this a week later.

"The debate just got reopened."

"Yeah, that can of worms is all over the place again."

"Never ceases to amaze me how one side or the other never seem to realize that you cannot be all light or all heavy; you need a mixture."

"I think most of them get that you need a mixture; but one side or another is always looking at a 65/35 split. To me a 45 -55 split with light forces having the edge seems about right. We have to look to the future with Korea and China and maybe Russia; those fights would be tank heavy. BUT most of our fights outside of there will be light; just as they have mostly been since first Korea with the exception of Desert Storm and the first part of the second Iraq war."

FORSCOM grinned at him. "Surprise that you liked the current split; even though you have a heavy unit."

"I am quite happy with what I have. I think overall the XVIII is set up just the way it needs to be."

Meanwhile at the 1st Armored and 1st Cavalry as well as the 3rd and 4th Infantry divisions were not as happy. Though the Infantry divisions were not as worried as the two heavy armored divisions were. They were worried that they would end up getting made lighter. They were all certain that the commander of the 1st ID had simply walked stupidly into the trap laid for him. And had thus made all heavy divisions look bad.

The fate of the 1st ID commander was being debated high up in the Army and the DOD. The SECDEF called in the Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Staff of the Army to discuss it.

"I want your recommendations now."

The Secretary was quiet for a moment. "He has had a good record up to now."

The Chief of Staff was blunt. "Filing that complaint clinched it in my eyes. Whining after getting your butt kicked is no way to act no matter what. What he should have done was congratulate her and then ask for a rematch in 6 months or whenever it could be arranged. But he acted like a spoiled 4 year old. And it has been pretty much a given that when a division disastrously; and make no bones about it that is what it was, fails a large exercise then the division commander is relieved. He still has two years to go and frankly I do not want him there."

SECDEF nodded. "That is my opinion as well and I shall so recommend to the president." He then sat back.

"She did better than I expected in her first exercise; especially just a few months after the massacre."

The Chief of Staff smiled. "One could probably say they were more frightened of her than anyone else. That tends to concentrate one's mind very well. But I have to say I have not seen some of those tactics tried before on a brigade level. She gambled and won; but they were not crazy gambles. They were cold blooded calculated risks. I hope we never find out if she is like that in real combat. Though some of her exploits already hint at it."

SECDEF looked at him. "Explain?"

"The last scenario and the second one. She basically sacrificed her entire sustainment brigade in the last one and in the second one virtually her entire division. In both cases she achieved her objective at huge costs. But if we were in total war, such as we would have been if the Warsaw Pact had ever attacked, that is exactly the kind of commanders I would have wanted."

The SECDEF mused on that. "I admit I did not expect her to act so cold-bloodedly; but then once again this was not the real thing."

The Chief shook his head. "Listen to those tapes again, sir, during the Pakistani operation. Totally cool and calm the entire time. I think I can say for virtually certain that if she saw the need she would sacrifice her entire division. Coldly and calmly. But I would also expect her to share their fate."

SECDEF looked at him. "Travis at the Alamo?"

"Yes sir. No running; just take as many as you can with you when you go down."

All three men contemplated that thought.

Liz looked up as her chief of staff came in.

"The General commanding the 1st ID has been relieved and will be retiring immediately."

Liz sighed. "I am of two minds on that. One, I think it is warranted with the way he acted. But on the other it's a sad end to a good career."

"Filing that complaint is what I think did it. Not just doing it but the mindset of doing it. I am pretty sure that was the final straw."

"I cannot believe that his people did not try and stop him."

"General, from what I have heard he was a bit of a bully. I think he had them intimidated into not going against him."

Liz shook her head. "Very stupid. If that is the case then I am glad he is gone. Would not want to have to depend on him if we went to war."

After the Division got back from their leave, they began to talk about the exercise. And they began to see just how ruthless Liz had been. And they began to wonder what would happen if they really went to war.

As usual Sid had his ear to the ground and heard the whispers. He had to admit that he could see where they were coming from. So he talked to Liz.

"Bottom line is they wonder if you would be that cold blooded and ruthless in a real war."

She looked at him. "What do you think?"

He paused for a moment then nodded. "If it was important enough you would do it."

She nodded. "Yes I would."

"That scares them some."

She sighed. Then leaned back in her chair and looked at him pensively.

"War is Hell; to quote Sherman. Who was perhaps the first person to really understand total war. The Romans leveled Carthage and salted the land. The Greeks destroyed Troy completely. But in each case that was an isolated happening. Sherman understood that if you want to really finish a war you have to destroy your enemies ability to wage war. Really the US Civil War was the first time that became policy. Carried out to the ultimate in WW2. People really do not think about that anymore. It is not taught that way. And that means that commanders have to be willing to sacrifice their command if it is important enough. If sacrificing my whole division would stop a nuclear war I would do it."

Command Master Sargent Major Sid Winston shivered. She meant it.

After he left Liz thought about it; and decided her division needed to know this about her. So she put out a message that would be read to every unit.

"Many of you wonder at my tactics during the exercise. Sacrificing all or part of the division to achieve the objective. This was a training exercise; you are allowed to do things there you would never do in a real war. But I need all of you to understand this: If I was put in the situation of preventing World War III by sacrificing the entire division; I would choose to sacrifice the division. Now I promise you one thing: if it ever comes to that I will stand with you to the end. And I promise you something else. I would not go to extremes like that if there was any other choice. But know I would do it if I believed I had to."

That message in some respects relived people; but in other ways just scared them; they realized they had a commander who would to that if she thought she had to.

That message got out to a few people not in the 101st; and one of them was the former SOCOM who had just retired. He read it and thought about things. He talked about it with his old Aviation Chief who had also retired.

"So what do you think?"

"I think that is what has always been there; she just finally showed it."

"But when you think of how hard she fought to keep her people alive…"

"Because she could without sacrificing anything important. With the exception of the operation to keep the Pakistani nukes out of Al queeda's hands she always had a choice; it was never so critical that she had to consider it. In that operation you can hear it in her voice; she was going to do whatever it took to keep those nukes out of their hands. If she had to sacrifice her whole command to do it she would have; if she had felt the need she would have rammed her Apache right into that bunker. Like I said it has always been there; for the first time she showed us a glimpse. In that exercise she showed the pragmatic thinking that would do it if she had to. But once again it would have to be something so big that accomplishing her mission was worth everyone and herself dying to get it done. I find that hard to imagine where she is right now. But it is there."

Liz had never really confronted her inner willingness to die or to sacrifice her command if necessary. But she understood that it had always been there. The Pakistan operation was the first time that she had faced that possibility. She had quietly determined that no matter what it cost her mission would succeed. If there was any way out of it she would take it; but if there was no other way she was prepared to sacrifice everyone including herself. She had deliberately not thought about it after the operation; but having to speak to Sid about it had brought it right back to the top. She then in her typical fashion faced her fears and came to terms with them; in this case not her fears but her determination. She would do whatever was necessary if it was important enough. She accepted it and placed it in its box; hoping to never have to open it again.

In the next few months Liz went back to her pattern of no notice inspections and training exercises; and for the Alert Brigades she gave them only 24 hours. She borrowed a regular apache now and then to keep current from one of her brigades; she found it hard to accept the limitations of the regular apaches after flying their big brother for so long. So she began to now and then borrow a spare Super from the 160th. Frequently challenging them to keep up with her. She looked upon this as her relaxation therapy.

Aliya seemed to be thriving at the University of Tennessee and seemed to have found a boyfriend; her first as she had dated very little while in Scotland. Liz did not hesitate to investigate him thoroughly. He seemed OK, but she made it a point to show up in Uniform once and accidentally meet him. Aliya of course saw through all this and scolded her mother for trying to ruin her love life. Liz just smiled.

"Of course I am. One of a mothers sacred duties."

2 months after shredding the 1st ID there was a training exercise with one of the Brigades of the 82nd; held at Bragg. Liz chose the 2nd Brigade and they did quite well; winning the scenario. Liz pushed TRADOC to let her get a full Brigade training exercise for each of her brigades against another divisional brigade at least twice a year. The former TRADOC had been moved on to another position as it was quietly seen he really did not have what it took; the new TRADOC was more aggressive and agreed with her.

"I guess you know that some of the heavy divisions want to even the score; to show you that your light division cannot really compete with them. That the 1st ID got its head handed to them because their division commander screwed up."

"Of course. Brigade to Brigade with the Aviation Brigade with mine; and a part of an aviation brigade with them. To make it fair."

TRADOC had smiled and had arranged for the 3rd Brigade of the 101st plus the 159th Aviation to go to Ft Hood and fight it out with the 1st Brigade of the 1st Cavalry. This happened in September and once again with only a 30 day warning. But the result was not far off from the first time. Liz had carefully prepared her people; and they had used their aviation edge to the maximum; once again showing how much an edge speed gave you. It was not the total knockout it had been before; but the 3rd Brigade after 4 days had a distinct edge.

Once again Liz rewarded the Brigade with a 72 hour off duty pass. And once again it caused talk about a Light Brigade outpointing a Heavy Brigade.

"Aviation was the difference; they could not overcome it. They were growling about that."

"Let them growl; the fact is that we will send any light division or brigade with more aviation assets than a heavy brigade every time. Because they need it. The heavy crew has claimed that they don't."

"I do not think you will hear that claim much anymore."

They got back to work again after the latest exercise. Liz was glad to see that the new sustainment people were doing a good job; and had decided that the acting Deputy Assistant Division commander for Support was good enough to keep; so she pushed for his promotion. And the others as well.

After 6 months as division commander Liz did an assessment of the situation. Overall she was satisfied that she had them about as ready as she could make them; her no notice exercises and inspections on the non alert brigades and the 24 hr warning on the alert brigade seemed to do the trick. Sniffing around, Sid had not been able to come up with any problems. So as she tried to do every month, she would have separate meetings with the enlisted and the officers of each brigade in the amphitheater; basically a bitch session for them. That seemed to work well as did her poking her nose into each area once a month.

They were now used to her wandering in and asking how things were going. She would just appear and tell everyone to just keep working; it took a few months for the majority of her people to realize she was just staying in touch and wanted to know what was going on. It was through these kinds of visits that she learned about problems that never seemed to make it up the ladder; bad equipment or contractors not doing a good enough job.

In her 6 months as commander, Liz had run out several contractors that did not live up to their contracts; and forced renegotiation on several more that had unreasonably badly written contracts. She caught some heat from some of the army bean counters but she basically told them to sit down and shut up. Reminding them that they were supposed to be doing this sort of thing not her.

Since a couple of those contractors were from large corporations that had a lot of influence in Washington, she did get a few calls from higher up; especially DOD contracting. She reminded them that it was their responsibility to make sure the troops were taken care of; not the contractor. Basically she told them as far as she was concerned they had been bought off. Needless to say, that was not received well.

The Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics looked at his assistant.

"She said what?"

"She did not quite come out and say it, but basically she said that him complaining about leaning on the contractors basically meant he was in their pocket."

The Undersecretary sighed. "Well tell him that from her point of view that is probably what it looked like. And that it is his duty to look after our people first, not the contractor."

"Sir that means we will probably start to hear from congress."

"I know. Well I should maybe talk to her."

"General Parker."

"Hold for the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics."

"General Parker, I felt I needed to talk to you about a conversation you had with the DCMA head."

"With all due respect, Mr Undersecretary, my point was clear. I had contractors hear either failing to live up to their contracts or contracts that should have had people in jail and I canceled them as I am allowed to do by law. As far as I am concerned he was more in the pocket of the Contractors and I was not going to waste my time with him. If he got butt hurt too bad."

The Undersecretary blinked. Took a deep breath.

"General, you do know there could be consequences from that."

"Let them come. I really doubt he wants to testify in front of congress about that, does he?"

Damn. She is playing hardball. The Undersecretary was an old Washington Hand and knew a losing argument when he was in the middle of one.

"I would say that is very much the case, General. I hope you are prepared for there to be some grumbling about this from corporations that have a lot of influence."

"I am sir. Let them growl. Like cockroaches, they will shut up and run for cover if the light of publicity is shed on them. And I would have no trouble calling a press conference and talking about it. Let them know and I doubt you will hear anything more from them, sir."

"Good Day general."

"Good Day Mr Undersecretary. I do not envy you your job."

Liz knew she was taking a chance but if they wanted to get rid of her she would take them down as well. She did not need this position; she could be quite happy outside the military. That was her edge and she was going to use it; she was going to do it her way or leave.

The Undersecretary knew he needed to kick this upstairs. So he buzzed SECDEF's office.

SECDEF was surprised; this was pretty far even for her. He decided to talk to someone that knew her fairly well. He put a call into the recently retired SOCOM.

SOCOM had found retirement a little boring but very relaxing so he thought he could get to the point where he was comfortable. The call from the SECDEF surprised him a little.

"Sir, what can this old broken down retired grunt do for you."

"Cut the crap, Sam. We have known each other way too long."

"OK, Joe. What is up?"

"Your favorite general is raising hell again."

"What did she do this time?"

"Fired a bunch of contractors and canceled other contracts forcing renegotiations. When the DCMA head called her on it, she pretty much told him to go have a drink on the bribe money and leave her alone."

The former SOCOM whistled softly. "Wow. That is pretty extreme even for her."

"It gets better. The Undersecretary called her about it and she told him that if the contractors or the DCMA head made noise she would call a press conference and talk about it."

"Holy shit. Not that it would surprise me; we both know how bad the process is."

"I know; even with the improvements we have made over the last few years it is still bad. But she sounds like she is ready to pop a nuke."

"And if she called a press conference and talked about this it would be one in the megaton range. But you know, that might be what would be required to reform this once and for all. A whole lot of publicity."

"Maybe. But what it would mostly do is threaten the budget. There would be a lot of people in congress that just would cut without changing anything. Not even talking about the ones who are bought and paid for by the contractors."

"True. But I admit that her willingness to kick the table over is a bit of a surprise. I will talk to her and see what is behind it."

"Please do. I need to know what is going on."

The ex SOCOM thought for a bit then made a call.

"Could you have the congressman call me at his convenience?"

The Congressman sat and thought about things after the phone call. What was she up to?

The Ex SOCOM then put in the call he was dreading somewhat.

"Sir, what can I do for you?"

"I hear you are raising hell about contracting. I was asked to try and find out what was going on. The SECDEF and I go way back and he asked me."

"I really doubt I need to tell you how bad it is?"

"No you do not. But why are you being hard core?"

"I decided when I made the commitment to stay in and accept promotion that I would do it my way or get out. I will not sit down and be quiet about things like this. If they want to toss me, fine. I do not need to be here."

He sighed. "Liz, this army needs you and this does not help to get you where we need you to be."

"Sir I will not back down on things like this; I owe it to the people I command NOW not who I may command in the future."

He was quiet as he realized that not only would she not bend; in her mind she could not. This was the price you paid for being a maverick.

"Just try and watch your back, Liz. They have a lot of power."

"Too much power and if they are able to take me out I will make them pay."

He called the congressman and relayed what they had talked about.

The Congressman nodded slowly.

"I was not going to run again but she needs my help. They will be gunning for her; and while I have no doubt she could take them down as you said the Army and this country needs her. I will talk to some of my colleagues."

The SECDEF put down his phone and sat back and thought about things. He knew she had some serious support; and she was absolutely correct that public opinion would be overwhelmingly on her side. Especially as she described the reasons for her actions. The Congressman would pretty much take care of any grief from congress; once they were made aware of how far she was willing to go they would NOT want to have any part of it. And without any congressional or DOD support the contractors would find out quickly just how weak their position was; they were businessmen first and the realization that the costs would far outstrip the benefits they would indeed sit down and shut up.

The Base Commander looked at his Contracting head.

"So for all intents and purposes she can do as she pleases?"

"Yes sir. I got this back door from someone I know in DCMA. She told him that he needed to take a drink on his bribe money; then told the Undersecretary the same thing. They have backed off and the DCMA head will not have anything to do with her now. The word I get is that no one wants to tangle with her; you know she has that congressman on her string so Congress is out. I think the contractors just found out how little power they have when it concerns her."

The Base Commander sat back and thought as he left. He had known that when she was made divisional commander things would not be normal. He just had not realized how abnormal it would be. Contractors running scared was very rare; especially those from large companies. Not that it bothered him; he had no liking for contractors at all; but they had always been considered a fact of life to anyone who had been in the military for the last 25 years. It was very refreshing to have someone come in and kick their butt.

The CEO put down his phone and considered things.

"I think we need to pull out of Ft Campbell. I was just told that she has total support in congress and elsewhere. If we try and push this we will regret it. We are a business; and this is bad for business."

The Contract officer could not believe it. All of the major contractors that had been involved in the controversy had basically cut and run. The smaller ones were being told to do what they were supposed to do and otherwise shut up. He sighed; this meant he had to solicit new contractors and that was a pain. He decided to talk to the Base Commander; maybe they needed to talk to the General about this.

Liz looked at the Base Commander and the Contracting officer and smiled. It was not a pleasant smile and both of them wanted to get out of there fast.

"All contracts at this installation that have anything to do with my command will be done right. They will be written tightly and enforced to the maximum. The Free Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner contractors have gotten here like elsewhere is over. We will follow the law and the regulations; which were written to first make sure the soldier is the priority. No matter how that has gotten warped and twisted since. That is all gentlemen."

The fallout from Liz's fight with the contractors came at many levels. New contractors came in and found out that the atmosphere at Ft Campbell was nowhere near what they were used to. The Base Commander directed the Contract officer to advertise for local contractors; to openly solicit local businesses. As regards things that could not be done by locals, there were some contractors that did do things right and they were known; the contract officer contacted them directly. It took some work but in a few months they had things back going again.

At the level of the huge contractors, this was noticed but not cared about. This was not an area they got into so it was not their problem. It was the medium sized contractors that over the years had gotten very fat on government contracts loosely written and loosely enforced that took it in the shorts. They realized that a public fight would see their entire position threatened; and that General Parker had them outgunned. So they just got out and would not consider contracts where she was.

The congressman had been very successful in his conversations with certain members that were for all intents and purposes bought and paid for by contractors. They realized that they had no choice but to stay out of it.

The DCMA, seeing that he had no support, would not have anything to do with Ft Campbell. The rest of his command got the message and any complaints by any contractors from that base would be ignored from then on. That word trickled down fairly quickly. The remaining contractors on Ft Campbell found themselves in the position of having to fully live up to the letter of their contracts and that was something new. The actual running of Ft Campbell began to get better and that was noticed and of course why that was so got out just as fast. Which made the support for Liz grow stronger and harder.

There were honorable companies out there that tried to do right; and they got the word and began to look at Ft Campbell. It was a large base and there were lucrative possibilities there. The Contract officer found companies contacting him that he had never heard from before.

This had all gotten out eventually at the upper level and FORSCOM and XVIII Airborne Corps found themselves talking about it one day not long after.

"So she told the DCMA to go buy a drink using the bribe money?"

"That is what I have heard."

"That is pretty extreme."

"But accurate."

"Telling the truth can sometimes be costly."

"The hints I get are that she does not care. If it gets too bad she calls a press conference and resigns on air and tells everyone why."

"Wow. Talk about the nuclear option."

"Yep. The bodies from there to the Pentagon would be waist deep; and the contractors would be declared public enemy #1. Talk about a wasteland. Needless to say the SECDEF and everyone else backed off. Congress as expected ran and hid. That left the contractors out in the open with her all by themselves. They are not stupid so they folded their tents and snuck out of town."

"Do you think she would do it?"

"In a heartbeat. I talked with the ex SOCOM chief that knew her pretty well. Basically if she cannot do it her way she will just walk away. No compromises."

They both contemplated the singularity of someone who would walk away rather than compromise what she thought important.

Unaware of this, and frankly uncaring if she had been, Liz moved along towards the goal of having the best division in the world. One year after taking command, she felt that she was probably as close as she was going to get. So now it was a case of having to maintain it. She was a fairly frequent visitor to the 160th, borrowing a Super Apache to play with; which to her was running the other Super Apache's ragged. Joe just stood back and watched and his training officer took notes from the acknowledged best.

"That is her hobby?"

"Pretty much. Every other month or so she schedules a day with the 160th and runs their Super Apache battalion ragged."

The Base Commander had gotten an offer from a friend to go into business and decided to retire. Once Liz heard about this she made a phone call.

"Yo, Jim, how are you doing?"

"Pretty good Liz. What is up?"

"How long have you been at Hood?"

"You know I left Scotland 4 months after you did. So it is just about 2 years here."

"Do you like it?"

"Why do I think this is a loaded question?"

"Well I recall you saying you were going to retire once."

"When I got my promotion we decided to just see what happens next. Hood is not a bad posting; a little too hot and dry but not all that bad."

"How would you like to come back east?"

"And do what?"

"Be base commander at Campbell. The current one is getting out. Since this is unexpected I know that the powers that be have no one in line at the moment."

"Well, why not?"

"Great. I will get your orders cut. Probably in 60 days."

Feeling better to have a friend at Campbell, Liz called up IMCOM and made a formal request.

The personnel officer spoke to his chief.

"General Parker wants the new Base Commander at Campbell to be the current one transferred from Hood."

"Was there anyone already chosen?"

"No sir. This was an unexpected vacancy."

"Then do it. What she wants she pretty much gets."

The debate and argument about the capabilities of light divisions vs heavy divisions had not cooled off much. It was still percolating pretty good. The heavy proponents felt they needed to show who was really boss and wanted another face off. The new commander of the 1st ID felt honor bound to prove that the debacle was a onetime thing brought about by an incompetent and rigid commander. From almost the day he took command he was on FORSCOM and TRADOC to schedule a rematch with the 101st. But he was told that due to the expense that doing another one with the same two divisions was not justified. So he then began to push to take on the 82nd. He was told to shut it; but TRADOC did point out that the 82nd had not had a real full division exercise in some time and it was agreed that they and the 3rd ID would go to the NTC for a faceoff.

The commander of the 82nd had been a little ticked off at the thumping given one of his brigades by the 101st and decided that this was a chance to prove he was as good as Parker and accepted the challenge. In February they met and the 3rd ID did well; though not overwhelmingly the winner. The heavy proponents felt somewhat vindicated. The Light proponents shrugged and basically said you did not beat our best and you had more time to get ready since they had a full 90 days. This did very little to settle anything.

Liz observed this and smirked a little; she did not like the commander of the 82nd.

FORSCOM and TRADOC discussed the exercise.

"He did not exactly back up his talk, did he?'

"Still did pretty well all things considered."

"He did well as long as he could move; but once pinned down he was done. Does not have the same ability to improvise as she does."

"The comparisons will really frost him now. I know he does not like her."

"The feeling is completely mutual."

The commander of the 82nd was very dissatisfied with the exercise and leaned hard on his brigades to improve. His brigade commanders voiced their disapproval for what they felt were needless drills and the like; they had performed quite well they felt given the conditions of the exercise. He became aware of this and had a closed door session with them.

"Right now the 101 and her are considered the best around. I am not satisfied and will not take second place to a glorified rotorhead masquerading as a division commander."

The Brigade commanders looked at each other and kept quiet. Mostly. But one of them mentioned it to his wife; who really did not like the General and was an admirer of Liz. She talked to a couple of others and it began to leak.

About a week later it came to the attention of XVIII Airborne Corps commander and he was quietly furious. Knowing that confronting the general would result in him working over his brigade commanders to find out who talked, he was determined to put him in his place. He went to TRADOC and let him in on it.

"I think he needs taken down a couple of pegs."

TRADOC nodded. He also did not like the 82nd's commander.

"I think we can arrange this."

Liz received notice of a divisional exercise at Ft Bragg. She smiled. And called in her staff.

"We get to shut him up once and for all people. In 30 days."

He got off the phone. "I want a staff meeting in one hour. We have 30 days to kick her ass."

Liz and her staff and the brigade commanders poured over plans for the next week. She looked at them then made a call to TRADOC.

"Sir, would it not be best if we made this a meeting engagement. No plans; last minute taskings and the like?"

"That would seem to be something airborne units should do well. I agree."

The 82nd commander put down the phone. "Change in plans. Throw them out. This will be a meeting engagement and taskings during the event. So we just have to be ready to react and move fast. We will see who the better commander is."

The 101st showed up in transports with their helicopters in formation. Liz had calculated this to make a show and further piss him off. It certainly did that.

"He did not show up to greet her?"

"Sent his deputy commander."

"Does this guy ever get it?"

"Doesn't look like it."

The first day Liz was told to take a position that the 1st Brigade of the 82nd was holding; it was in a hilly area. She sent in her Apaches and from range saturated the area with 2.75's and 30MM; it was shown that a carefully drawn up fire plan put a rocket or shell on virtually every square yard the entire area that the Brigade was in. They demonstrated it on an unoccupied area. Then she sent in hard and fast her Little Boys to drop off raiding teams while the Attack Little Birds covered them. Then put a brigade on each side and squeezed.

It took only 3 hours to take the position. The 101st took 25% casualties while the 82nd brigade was declared virtually destroyed.

The next day the 101st was put in the same position. This time the 3rd Brigade was dropped and told to dig in for attack. Liz had her attack little birds land and get covered with camo netting. She gambled that the 82nd would not look and notice. They did not and brought their helicopters in too close and were massacred.

The 3rd day the entire 82nd was dug in and waited to be attacked. They expected the 101st to maneuver to try and get an advantage before attacking. But Liz through everything she had right at the center of the 82nd's position without showing anything until the attack. She thus had an overwhelming advantage at the point of attack and followed it up, ironically doing just what a heavy brigade would do. She had her people carry twice the issue of ammunition and use marching fire; whereupon you fire in a general area as you attack. It was over in one hour.

That evening Liz was looking over the last days exercise. It was expected that the entire 101st would be placed in a defensive position and give the 82nd the opportunity to show what it could do on a divisional level. She had some ideas that she discussed with her staff; they were risky but seemed to give them an edge.

At 0600 they received their tasking and as expected it was a divisional defensive operation. Liz looked over the scenario carefully. Then smiled.

He looked at the recon footage and smiled. Finally they had her!

"Plan Baker! We caught her still moving. We will roll them up."

Liz had been told that the objective was to hold this position; but she was gambling that she could destroy the 82nd without playing defense. She once again used her sustainment personnel to actually dig in on the objective while she partialed out each of her brigades to take down one of the 82nd's brigades one on one. Basically to let them commit then sweep in around and either flank them or hit them from the rear. Within one hour of the beginning of the exercise it was now basically 4 battles on the ground and one in the air; and while interesting to the observers it did not help the 82nd at all as they were unable to get near the objective. After 8 hours it was declared over. Since the objective had been barely brushed, it was declared solidly held. And the overall casualties favored the 101st 2-1. So four scenarios and four clear victories for the 101st.

That night the 82nd commander drank too much beer and proceeded to air his grievances right out in the street of the middle of the senior officer's residence area. Which just happened to be where the VIP quarters were as well. And FORSCOM, TRADOC and XVIII airborne were. Since this was at midnight, the ruckus woke them all up.

FORSCOM called XBIII on his cell phone.

"He is under your direct command."

"I will take care of it."

Not liking this at all but knowing it was his responsibility XVIII headed over to corral his drunken general. He dragged him into his house; and sat him down.

"General, you are within an ace of being relieved so shut up and SIT DOWN."

But he kept yelling insults and very explicit remarks about General Parker. Finally XVIII had had enough and called the MPs and had him tossed in the shower and forcefully sobered up.

What no one knew was that one of the teenagers who had been watching this had gotten her cell phone camera and it was one of the new models that had audio as well. She proceeded to share it with a bunch of her friends. The General was not very popular on base. So it would not have surprised anyone that by morning it was on You tube and Face Book both. And not long after that the media found out about it and it was by noon the next day all over everywhere.

The President saw it and was very pissed off. And he passed that down to the SECDEF with orders to take care of it right away. By 1400 that afternoon the general was relieved from his command.

The official critique and review had been canceled and Liz and her staff were trying to find out why when they found out about it. Liz promptly ordered everyone to not say a word and then gathered up her command and left the post immediately; one day ahead of schedule. XVIII called her and informed her that TRADOC would talk to them soon; but for the time being to just go home and keep quiet.

This was a very juicy story and the media loved it. The army was happy that only a part of what the general had been ranting had been captured on video; it was not as bad as some of what he had been saying. And nothing compared to what he had said in his own home in the presence of the XVIII Airborne Corps commander and post MP's.

Then the media found out how the 101st had not only just kicked the 82nd's butt but the recent past where they had kicked everyone else's butt as well.

So a year and a half into her command of the 101st Airborne Division Liz was once again a subject of household and widespread conversation.

SECDEF had a meeting to discuss the situation; it was decided to keep it simple. The General had acted in a manner unbecoming of an officer and gentleman and he was relieved for cause. After that he ordered a meeting with TRADOC, FORSCOM and XVIII.

"Gentlemen, I hope I do not have any more division commanders who are either stupid or drunks."

The three generals looked at each other and then at SECDEF. Finally answering for them all was FORSCOM.

"I think at the moment he was the last one, sir."

"Very well. Now I want to know if she is really that good or has she just run up against poor commanders."

XVIII took that one. "Sir the margin of the victories were greater due to the commander in the exercise with the 1st ID but she would have won anyway even if he had been better. Here the 82nd actually maneuvered pretty well but her units were faster and quicker; and she got into his head and messed him up. As we all saw."

FORSCOM agreed. "She won by a bigger margin due to the mistakes her opponents made; but she would have won anyway since she plain out thought them."

SECDEF pondered that. "OK. Now my next question is for the future. She is halfway through her tour with the 101st. She has ramped that unit up to the point that it is arguably the best division in the army, correct?"

All three nodded.

"Her entire record seems to indicate that she is best at building units up and fixing them. This posting was actually a test case for her; to see if she could handle a large unit as well as she did a smaller one. That question has been answered in the absolute affirmative manner. But what to do with her next?"

TRADOC answered first. "As a roving inspector and examiner, I would love to have her. She can spot bad units and problems very quickly. And reworking training doctrine would be a huge help. She clearly has the ability to do that beyond anyone else we currently have."

FORSCOM was pensive. "Partly I hate the idea of her not commanding a unit because that is so clearly what she does best. But General Miles comment about reworking training doctrine is dead on. Her exercises in Europe, which her successor has kept up, have become models for how to do it as a means of keeping a unit sharp and identifying officers just not up to the task. Frankly that is what we need more of here in the US."

XVIII sighed. He could see this coming. "I would love to have her as my deputy but frankly I think she can be of greater use to the Army in TRADOC. At least for a few years. Then to be honest my position would be best; she would still command even if at a distance."

TRADOC and FORSCOM agreed and SECDEF nodded.

Liz, unaware of the fact that her next position had already been agreed on kept right on working her unit.

One thing that Liz had noticed and had been looking at hard was the combat load that her troopers had. The army had tried to reduce this as the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan had driven home the fact that the US military expected its troops to carry too much to battle. Some progress had been made but the usual bureaucratic BS and interference from contractors and congress had bogged it down. She had talked to Sid about it early on in her command.

"Just how much weight are they carrying?"

"70 lbs plus. It is down from what it was in Iraq but still too high. I think right now it is right about 75 lbs and it is going up again."

Liz shook her head. "That is just plain stupid. What is it that weighs so much or is it a combination?"

"It is a combination; the body armor is worst. But the extra tools and above all water we are supposed to carry is where a lot of the weight is coming from. The heavy weapons people with MG and Mortars and the like are much worse off."

Liz had gone back and searched her memory from her time in Iraq and remembered seeing the troops almost literally bowed down by what they had to carry. Then she thought about Afghanistan not that long ago and it was the same. She looked at Sid.

"I noticed that the Brits did not carry as much."

"No they don't. And I do not think any other army carries what we do."

"Look into it."

6 months later he had come back with a fair amount of data including a couple studies done early in the Iraq conflict by TRADOC that had been mostly buried or ignored. Liz spent several days going over this after the exercise with the 82nd. Her troopers were considered light but that was not the case with what they carried. She then had Sid pull in some troopers that had been with the division for some time and found out what it was like for them in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Liz tried to meet with small groups as much as she could; she found that after a while they forgot she was their general and just talked openly. She learned a lot this way.

"If we could find a cart or something like it we used that as much as possible; anything to not carry it on our backs."

"As much as possible the only time we wore the backpacks we were issued was on inspections and reviews. Otherwise the guys would use commercial stuff that we worked on so that it was the way we needed it."

"Carrying so much water was a big problem yet we needed it. We were able to get a couple of bladders on a cart and we used that the last 4 months we were there on that deployment."

After they left Liz contemplated things. She looked at Sid.

"The heavy units do not worry because they mostly ride into combat and leave their heavy stuff with the vehicles. We cannot do that."

He nodded. "We have to pretty much march when we are dropped off. We need something to either carry stuff for us or much lighter gear."

At the two year mark Liz was working hard on this along with a picked group of troopers. She had authorized purchase of commercial gear and had them working on putting together a hybrid type of pack. She got a chance to talk to TRADOC not long after they had finished their products.

He had come to visit and look around at what was now accepted as the best division in the US Army and the best trained as well. He was almost counting the days until he could get her into TRADOC where he had some big plans for her. Then she showed him what she had been working on.

Liz waited as he looked over the bastardized pack system that her people had put together. It weighed considerably less than issue equipment; and she showed him what she had authorized as the combat load for her people.

He sat there and mused for a minute then looked at her.

"We have had study groups and lots of high paid so called professionals working on this for years and they had not accomplished much. I know about that report that was done back in 2003. Almost 15 years ago. It has been pretty much forgotten."

"We need to do more than has been done to lighten the load. My people have come up with some solutions but the issue of requiring our troops to carry so much extra crap has to be solved."

"So you mind if I take this with me. And your study? I want some others to look it over."

"No problem."

He got FORSCOM and XVIII to come by and look at well. They poked at it and actually put it on and tried it out. Then they read what her group had come up with. Finally FORSCOM looked at him.

"We need her working on this full time. But frankly even with the third star that will be coming soon where would you put her that she can really get things done?"

"I am going to ask that a couple of my areas be consolidated and that I be given a 3 star position just for her. To work on these sorts of things."

He had gone to SECDEF not long after that visit and he had signed off on it. SECDEF then talked to her congressman to get support in Congress and was assured that it would be forthcoming.

Liz looked around at her office that she had been at for almost 2 and a half years; she knew the clock was ticking again and wondered where she would go. Odds were it was either Pentagon or TRADOC. She thought that TRADOC would be the place to go. She really liked the current one and his deputy who was slated to take over in about a year was a lot like him; she thought they could get along well. But no longer really commanding was something that she would miss. Her 101st was now openly acknowledged as the best division in the US Army.

SECDEF had called in TRADOC for a meeting.

"The bill has been written and the President has agreed; her congressman will present it next week. There should be no problem getting it through by the end of next month. So realistically we can cut the orders now. Her replacement been decided on?"

"XVIII and FORSCOM agree that her idea of promoting her deputy to the position is a good one. She has him fully trained and he appears to be a good one. If he has been able to make her happy for over 2 years then we should give him the benefit of the doubt."

In a surprise ceremony today, Elizabeth Parker, Current commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division located at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, was promoted to Lieutenant General. While not unexpected, as her record as a division commander has been as impressive as her other commands, it still came as a surprise to her. The timing was curious as she still had several months to go as commander of the 101st. And in another interesting development, there appears to be a special bill going through congress to establish a special position at the Training Command, known as TRADOC. And from all accounts General Parker will be nominated for that position. She will as a three star have to be confirmed for that position even though she already has her promotion."

Liz had been stunned that everyone had managed to hide this from her. All of a sudden SECDEF had appeared and there had been a ceremony in front of the entire division where she got her 3rd star pinned on her by her husband and her mother. Then he had told her that a special position had been established for her at TRADOC where she would basically be taxed with rewriting the training doctrine for the US Army infantry and light forces. And at the same time be in charge of the program to reduce the combat load. She had a hunch she would be very busy; but she had been able to pick her own people. So Jim Harkness was coming along as well as Sid. And she was pulling the sergeant and troopers who had been helping Sid with the project.

One month later she surrendered command of the 101st with great regret; but she was looking forward to the challenge given her: rework the US Army heavy and light infantry.

Liz's official job title was Director of Special Projects. She was basically going to be the utility fielder for TRADOC. If something needed to be done quickly she would be getting the call. But this was beyond what he had immediately tasked her with: first coming up with a new pack for the US soldier that was lighter and would allow them to move farther and faster. And to look at the combat load and cut it down. Then she would be reworking the training doctrine from the top on down so that training would be more meaningful. Then she was also to look at the basic tactics involving the US infantry to see if it needed changing. Her 3 stars and access to TRADOC (he had installed her in an office just down the hall from him) would give her the clout to get things done.

The move to Virginia was not really that far but it was very different being so close to the ocean. James, who was now almost 9, accepted the reality of the move but was interested and Liz figured he was happy. Max had found a good job with a friend from the corps working on a project to come up with temporary airstrips; it was interesting and challenging.

The confirmation hearing in the senate had been more of a show as various Senators just wanted photo ops. Liz had been calm and quiet in her testimony as since the position was new and very flexible there was not much to say about it. She only had to testify for one day and then the Senate has unanimously approved her selection. Which was very rare, she was told.

Liz gathered her crew. Sid, now considered a team leader while still at his Command Sergeant Major Rank, had assembled a Master Sergeant, Josh Simmons; a Staff Sergeant, Zack Watson; and four sergeants, Tom Snyder, Robert Brewster, Ed Walsh and Bruce Webster. All foot loose and fancy free. And sometimes fairly rowdy but Liz liked all of them. She had talked to her retired Sergeant Axton who agreed to look over some of their ideas and give input.

Jim Harkness, now her Chief of Staff, had collected a few officers he thought would help out. Liz had quietly put out the word to those that had served with her to be on the lookout for mavericks and free thinkers among officers.

Liz looked around her. She had a grand total of 8 officers and 7 enlisted men. She would have an admin staff of clerks and secretaries to do the paperwork, who she would share with the rest of the HQ staff. She was well aware that they were wary of her; the newcomer with the new position and full access to the boss. She tried to make it clear that she would not be poaching and was happy for any input. But she knew it would be a while before they let down their guard and she accepted that.

"OK, people, first things first. The pack. I want it ready to outsource. And we will need to get a patent lawyer somewhere to see if we violate anything. Jim, talk to JAG about that. Also we need to look at the combat load. I want only what the average grunt will need not what someone THINKS he will need. That is the primary reason I got you guys; you have all seen combat recently and know the score."

Sid had held a lot of brainstorming sessions with the troopers for a long time so he was very familiar with what they wanted. A pack that was useful and got done what was needed without being too bulky or heavy. Detachable pouches that you could fill and leave and either put on or take off. They were mostly done but they wanted to tweak it then get enough to have a real field test. They had contracted a local company to do all this.

Liz was also looking at the standard issue body armor and was not happy with it; for the protection it gave it was just too heavy. She had calls in to all the R & D firms who were working on this.

The combat load was just flat out stupid. Liz had Sid and the ground pounders cut it back to the absolute minimum. They were going to cut down on water as since they pack would be lighter they would not need as much. Two canteens and that was all. Basic first aid kit which was cut back as well. Tools would be virtually removed as their use was too limited. What was needed to keep their weapon going and that was that.

The helmet was also being looked at. It was also just too heavy. It gave good protection but they needed to find a way to make it lighter. The carbon fiber Kevlar mix looked promising but they needed to check it out.

One of the big problems was night vision goggles and other electronic gear and the radios. The US army had gotten big on that and Liz thought they had gone too far. But Night Vision goggles were an absolute must and she knew it. Which also meant spare batteries. The same with radios.

One month in she had a meeting.

"OK, where are we?"

Sid shrugged. "The Pack is ready and the company is starting to churn them out." She looked at Jim.

"What about patents and copyrights?"

"The JAG got us a copyright lawyer and he is looking at that now; does not expect any problems. We are mixing and matching and changing so much He doubts there will be any issues."

"OK. Now tell me about the combat load."

Jim pulled out his list. "Here is what we can agree on as regards the minimum. It comes to 54 lbs without the helmet, goggles or radios."

She grimaced at that. That meant they would still be well over 60 lbs. Not that much of an improvement.

"It is the body armor."

They all nodded. Jim sighed. "It is 25 lbs and that is that. We have cut almost 15 lbs elsewhere but that body armor is the big thing we have not been able to do anything about."

Liz sighed. TRADOC had flat told her that there was no way that it would be approved to be dropped. Congress was absolutely stone cold on this. She could see the point but really wondered just how much good it did. Against a typical AK-47 7.62MM X 39MM bullet, if you were closer than 200 feet it would penetrate. And most of the combat they came up against was closer than 200 feet. Now it did very well at protecting against shrapnel from grenades and explosions; and the IED's had been huge killers in Iraq and Afghanistan. And that was the main reason behind the unyielding demand for it. So Liz had talked to the various companies doing R & D and had asked for a helmet and body armor that would protect against fragments and shrapnel only. She hoped they would come up with something.

She looked over the list of the combat load and then emailed it to former Sergeant Axton to see what he thought of it. She also sent it to some of her contacts with the various British regiments she had worked with over the years. The guys on the crew would also send it to others they knew for their input. She sat back and thought for a minute. Really they had gone as far as they could with what they had. So time to move on to the next issue.

She looked at her people. "OK. For the time being the pack will wait until we have enough to test out. Combat load we will also wait for input from others. So now we will start looking at the training doctrine. We have copies of what we used with the 101st so let's get to looking at them and decide if anything needs to change for infantry units."

The Commander of the Infantry school looked around at his staff.

"OK. Word I get is that she will be rewriting the training doctrine then look at the tactics used. She has from what I have found out a small staff of enlisted men from the 101st; and I imagine she would also reach out to others she would know, probably in the British Army. So we need to be ready to move when she starts sending things our way. I got a firm commitment from TRADOC that he will not change anything until we have got our input in. Change is coming people and if we try and stop it we will get run over. Anyone that has gotten in her way before has become a grease stain on the road. We will not make that mistake. Especially since I am willing to bet a lot of what she will come up with has been tossed around here before and rejected for what were probably stupid reasons; or got shot down as they went higher. She will have the clout to make it stick so we have got to make sure it is the right type of changes."

TRADOC had talked to her about the school and she realized that she really should make nice with them so she scheduled a visit to Fort Benning and to talk with the people that actually taught infantry tactics.

One nice thing about getting a third star was that she had access to a jet just about whenever she wanted to. So she whisked herself, Jim and Sid and went to talk to the teachers at the school (as she put it). As she got off the jet she looked around and realized she had been back here since she had left aviation school. She wondered if any of the instructors were left; but she doubted it. It had been almost 11 years. She mused to herself about the times she had thought about becoming an instructor. She now knew she would not have been happy doing it.

One thing she did not like about her present rank was all the so called deference and brown nosing it inspired. She made it a point to get informal every chance she had to try and defuse it as much as possible. But it got old.

The one star liked to think of himself as fairly unimpressed by most that came to visit; and to be honest it was rare that they got three stars that really came to talk. But this general was unique and like just about everyone else who met Elizabeth Parker he felt the presence as she entered the room. Which was all the more amazing considering how tiny she was.

"OK. I am here to talk to the pros here about changing training doctrine and also about looking at changing basic infantry doctrine. I want your input on both. To start with I will show you my thoughts on both; what I and my staff have come up with."

With that Jim started the power point presentation that they had finished up only the week before.

Liz had spent a lot of time talking to Sid and the other veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan about small unit tactics. The training doctrine actually did not address tactics; it addressed how to train and what to do to train. It went with her ideas about simple training programs that forced both officers and enlisted men to be light on their feet and able to make changes on the fly. The tactics of squad and platoon combat had to very depending on the situation. And that was the point she was trying to make. Have a standard core of tactics and then very them depending on who they were fighting and where they were fighting. There were major differences in how you fought in the jungle vs how you fought in the forests vs how you fought in cities and towns. But some rules were the same no matter what and that is what she concentrated on.

The presentation basically covered the entire spectrum of basic training for infantry through small unit basic tactics. The concept of minimally scripted and controlled training was a very big change. That got a fair amount of comment.

"You cannot mean just send them out and let them run around?"

"Give them straightforward objectives and then stand back and let them sink or swim based on their own abilities. Basically what has been happening for some time is that we have started to look like the Warsaw Pact and their training films."

That went over like a real lead balloon as one thing that had been harped on for a long time was how inflexible the Warsaw Pact had been. Liz pointing out that the US Army had been heading in that direction was like a glass of cold water poured down the shirt.

Interestingly the small unit tactics proposals mostly met with approval as they were pretty much what had been recommended by the school but had been shot down at a higher level. The Training Doctrine did grate as they were basically being told to throw out their manuals and start over.

"People, since we are in agreement with the small unit tactics then I propose that you write it up as a formal proposal and I will push it."

That brought them all up short; this would mean they would get credit for it.

After several hours of back and forth they came around to her way of thinking on the training doctrine. She pointed out that there were similarities to what she was proposing and what Special Forces had been doing for years; as well as the SAS and other commando units. She saw no reason that the regular troops could not learn the same things. Move fast and hit hard. Do not expose yourself if possible and above all take the initiative.

The one star felt he had to make a comment.

"SF has years of experience; are we sure we can get our regular infantry to that level?"

"Why not? It will mean throwing some of the previous training out to make room for it but a lot of that was unnecessary."

By the end of the day they had agreed on most things and were working on writing it all up. Liz had blocked off two full days for this but it looked like they would get it done if they were willing to work into the evening. No one objected and they finally finished everything at 1900.

The VIP quarters at Benning were nice and while she missed sleeping next to Max Liz dropped off to sleep right away. And there was nothing she could do about the fact that she woke up right at 0530. She decided to just go with it and got up and hit the mess hall as soon as it opened at 0600. It shook a few people up to see a 3 star casually come into a mess hall but she just laughed at the shocked looks.

"Come on people, it is not like I have horns."

After a bit they relaxed and since most of them were officer candidates they were not as shy as others who had been in the military for a long time so she invited them to sit with her at one of the tables at the back reserved for Brass. There were 9 of them; all OCS candidates that had served one hitch.

"General, when you were looking at that bunker what were you thinking?"

"I had seen them go in just seconds before. Now there was a chance they had been working on the bombs but it seemed very remote; I was as sure as I could be that they would not be able to do anything. So it was almost target practice as I sent those Hellfires one by one at that door."

She spent an enjoyable half hour talking to them before they had to run to class. She got up and headed out and decided to just wander a bit. Which is something that no general, not even a three star, is really supposed to do.

She walked into the Aviation School and almost panicked the poor office crew.

"Just wandering and remembering." She went to the flight line and scared the crap out of the ground crew preparing the choppers for the morning students.

"Just bringing back old memories."

Feeling she had been evil enough, she headed back to the Infantry School.

The one star was looking over the proposals when he got a call.

"General, she is wandering around the aviation school; the commandant almost had a heart attack!"

"Well, I am not her keeper and why would anyone be surprised she would want to see a place she has not been to for a long time but spent a year in?"

He shook his head; she was definitely one of a kind but good lord why in the world were they panicking?

The Infantry school had quickly scheduled a show for her and she was appreciative. She spent the rest of the day just talking to the various schools for the discipline. She ended it by talking to some of the Armor School officers; who wanted to get their two cents worth in.

"Contrary to what you may have heard I believe that heavy tanks will always, as long as there is ground combat, have their place. Even in Iraq in the cities they were a huge factor. And I will always have a soft spot in my heart for an Abrams since they rescued me from that cluster fuck convoy mess."

About that time Jim stuck his head in the door of the classroom that had been appropriated for her impromptu visit.

"Looking for a wandering 3 star. They have not yet set the hounds loose but it won't be long."

Liz grinned. "Yeah, I know I was not supposed to slip out the window using a bed sheet but hey I felt like wandering around." She got up and waved a goodbye to the bemused officers and headed out.

Her visit to Benning cleared the air and unruffled some feathers. She reassured people she was not just rolling in and running over everyone.

Meanwhile one of the gang of 6, as they called themselves, had viewed old pictures from WW2 in the museum at Ft Eustis and had noted that the Airborne troops had used carts to move equipment and supplies around. One of the things that had been looked at to drop with the troops were ATVs to move their equipment. Small trailers and ATVs were being looked at but the same old problems came up. You had to have fuel and they needed maintenance. Even if you kept them simple they still took up room. He looked around the internet and found a place that two wheeled carts could be purchased and got one on his own nickel; Liz had told them to do that rather than wrestle with the system and she would find a way to pay them back. So when Liz got back with Jim and Sid from Benning she found them tooling around the area with a cart packed high with supplies.

"General, this might be the simplest way to solve the problem."

The more they looked at it the more it seemed right. They could get carts that actually folded into a more compact transportable bundle but could be assembled in a few minutes and carry up to 400 lbs of materials. Of the others had also wondered if folding bicycles could help as well. But that faded when it was pointed out the relatively limited times they would have access to good roads which were a must for bicycles.

After some debate Liz authorized a buy of 50 folding two wheel carts that seemed pretty sturdy. One thing that would have to change would be to find some or make them so that they did not reflect light but for the moment that was a secondary concern. They were shipped to Campbell and she asked the Division commander to try them out in some exercises.

He looked at the carts that General Parker had asked him to try and shook his head. What next?

But over the next month he was amazed as his infantry admitted that it was a great idea. While being transported in helicopters usually meant they did not have far to walk, it still was a whole lot easier using those carts then it was humping the stuff. And even out on patrols it came in handy as it allowed most of the patrol to strip down to fighting gear only and yet still have their other gear nearby. Of course it would not work everywhere; but most places it would.

The new packs had come in and they had been tried out and found good; so 1000 were procured and sent to Campbell. By this time the division commander had learned to roll with the punches and sent them to one of the brigades to try out. Within a month he was being besieged by requests for more.

Rewriting the training doctrine was a long involved process that took several months once the basic tenets were agreed on. And then they tried it out once again at Campbell, which was beginning to be called Parkers Playhouse.

Liz looked at the calendar and was actually surprised that it had been almost a year since she had come to TRADOC. A lot had been accomplished; and one company had come up with some new possibilities for helmets and body armor that looked very promising. The training doctrine and new small unit tactics and training plans had been staffed and were now being sent to the various commands for comments.

TRADOC had read it first and had marveled how simple it was; it was less than half the length of the previous edition. Simplicity was the key. Even the wording of it was much plainer. And blunt. It straightforwardly talked about killing the enemy and destroying his means of supply and the like. No euphemisms or stupid acronyms. Liz had been very hard on this.

"An army is meant to defeat its enemies by killing them and destroying their support and infrastructure. This is written to make that plain. It is NOT politically correct."

Liz had pushed TRADOC into giving all commands 90 Days to comment. She was not really surprised to see that the regular commands did not have too many comments. But JAG and the Legal types did. She asked them to come to a meeting at Ft Eustis. They sent a two star and a few colonels.

"General, we have some problems with the wording."

"General, with all due respect I do not care if any of this offends ANYONES feelings. An Army exists to kill and destroy. It is a CRIME, is it not, to Lie?"

Liz bored right on him with this.

"Is it or is it not a crime to Lie?"

"Yes sir, it is."

"I do not lie. Nor do I permit anyone under me to lie if I know about it. To use euphemisms is to lie."

The Two star and his colonels left realizing that they were not going to get anything.

That took care of Legal. Next to whine and cry was safety; they claimed that not enough safeguards were in the manuals. Once again Liz called them to come with a meeting.

"The SOP's that are written will be reviewed by Safety. Correct?"

"Yes General."

"Then if you do your jobs correct there will be no operations without SOP's that are signed off by Safety, Correct?"

"Then what is your problem?"

"Sir there are not enough safety measures."

"That is not the job of those that write these manuals. That takes place when the manuals are implemented at each individual installation. The Army Safety Manual is still the guide, correct?"

"Yes sir."

"Does this manual contravene it in any way?"

"Sir it can be interpreted…"

"Show me where it contravenes the Army safety Manual."

"Sir, it is somewhat vague."

"It is vague to allow each command and installation to make adjustments so as to fit what they need. Once again I am asking you a question, general. Answer it. Does it contravene the Army Safety Manual?"

"No sir."

"Then I believe our conversation is over."

TRADOC looked at his Chief of Staff. "Legal and Safety are whining?"

"Yes sir. But they cannot show where it contravenes any current regulations."

"So tell them to piss up a rope."

"Yes sir."

After the 90 days Liz had her people look at the comments and they did change a few things but nothing major. It was at that point that Liz decided it was time and gave it to TRADOC to sign off on. From him it would then go to the SECDEF (technically the Secretary of the Army but he was just a rubber stamp).

SECDEF talked to TRADOC.

"So what about the whining I have heard from Legal and Safety?"

"The legal whining is from the same idiots that tried to push those stupid rules of engagement in Iraq. Where basically you had to let the other side shoot first before you could do anything. Means nothing. Safety wants it more specific."

"Is it valid?"

"No. She explained that she wanted to give each command and if necessary each installation room to modify it somewhat with their local SOP's. Safety will still have to sign off on their SOP's so their whining means nothing either."

"Very well I will sign off on it."

It would be a while before all the various commands and the like actually implemented the new training doctrine, but it would come.

Liz looked at the examples the company had come up with. She had put out the criteria that the helmet and body armor should be frag and shrapnel resistant with the ability to install more protection for actual bullet protection. This rather small company had gotten back to her with their ideas.

The helmet was a steel alloy that was lighter than most but still pretty strong; and it would still be cheaper than the current Kevlar helmets but much lighter; almost half the weight. It did offer less protection against bullets but only slightly less protection against fragments and shrapnel. The lack of bulk and the much lighter weight were clearly the tradeoffs. They had sent her 20 examples and Liz ordered 10 of them used for testing of their ability to give protection. The design was good in that it would protect the ears and the back of the neck; it looked more like the WW2 german helmet but there were clear differences. One of those was the new gelpacks for padding; they would not heat or cool like old ones did; were much lighter and gave a significant cushioning effect that would help prevent concussions. They were not gell at all; more like high tech foam that was supposed to last for some years before they lost their elasticity. They told Liz that they had tried every type of plastic available but the weight factor went up and the protection factor barely changed; and the plastic would crack and thus be much more expensive to repair. The metal could be just straightened out.

The body armor was made of a new type of glass and carbon fiber combination. Not as resistant as Kevlar but much lighter. Almost half as heavy. And it could have plates installed to protect more; as well as the foam type padding to absorb impacts and kinetic energy. Just the bare basic armor could protect against all but heavy artillery frags. It would protect against fragmentation grenades. Mortar fragments could penetrate but would have very little energy left. Liz put a set on and noticed that not only was it much lighter, it was also less bulky. She ordered that sent to Aberdeen Proving Ground for testing with the helmet.

The last one of the initial assignments was to examine and refine small unit infantry tactics. Liz called for the SF and the Infantry school to get together and discuss the possible changes at Ft Eustis and scheduled it for a month later.

At the meeting was the chief of the Infantry school, the SOCOM training chief, and people they chose. They included Rangers and SF and Light and heavy infantry officers; all with experience in the recent wars. Liz had been very firm about that; she wanted no one at the meeting who had not been in ground combat.

The meeting lasted three days and they managed to thrash out a standard doctrine for the Infantry. It would serve as the base for all infantry training no matter where they would go. Ranger, SF, Light and Heavy Infantry would build upon the base for their own particular needs.

The small unit tactics for any purpose would depend on the enemy and terrain; but the basics were the same as regards movement and use of weaponry. The Heavy Infantry had more available to them than any of the others; and control of that weaponry had to be added in.

After 6 months on the job the primary tasks were either done or almost done so Liz decided to see what TRADOC wanted next. He was just about to leave for retirement so he had decided that his deputy, who would be replacing him, needed to take care of this. So Liz had a meeting with the Deputy TRADOC commander.

"OK. Pretty much got all that was tossed on my plate done or almost done so I need to know what is next."

"Simple. You did a great job with the Infantry so now I want you to review all doctrines and tactics for Aviation, Armor and Artillery. And combined teams as well. "

Liz had to admit that the shock on her staff's faces had raised her spirits some.

"That is right – we have to look at and update the training doctrine for Aviation, Artillery and Armor just like we did with Infantry."

They still looked shocked. She grinned.

"Come on, guys, it's no big deal."

Liz sat and watched with the rest of the parents and family as the class of 2022 graduated. Aliya had decided that she wanted to be a teacher. And Liz had no doubt she would be a very good one. Les Atkins was right with Aliya as he had been pretty much from their freshman year. They had been engaged for 2 years now but were firm in waiting until they were graduated before getting married. Les was a civil engineer and they had both been lucky in getting jobs in the Nashville area. Liz was glad since they would have friends all around. She felt the years passing though. She was now 39. Max was 55 but still gorgeous. She had found her first grey hair just a little while ago. Max insisted that she looked hardly a day over 30; she barely had the beginnings of lines around her eyes and mouth. James was now 10 and was as happy go lucky as ever; but he was starting to really get interested in computers so she and Max had a feeling which way he was going.

They had a graduation party that evening at the park they all liked in Nashville. Liz was happy to see that the whole Posse and Crew had made it. Maria and the others had visited as well but had to get back home. Her mom and Ted were very much the proud grandparents. Liz was just happy that she was able to take some time off; the new mission she had been given was a lulu. By the time they were done they would have pretty much re written the training doctrine for just about the entire US Army. But she had to admit that she did enjoy the challenge.

They had decided that they should go over it one at a time starting with Aviation, which Liz correctly figured would be the easiest due to her experience. She pretty much just used what they had been doing with the SOAR and made it a little more general. It took only two months to do and she sent it out for suggestions while they moved on to Artillery. Since none of them had any experience with it she roped in some people with the Artillery school.

But first she had to get through the wedding of her daughter. Aliya had decided that she wanted it simple and Liz was quite happy about that. They had it at Campbell in the part that she and the Posse and Crew knew so well. It was not a huge wedding; only around 70 all together.

Liz had given Les a hard time; just as the prospective mother in law should. But she liked him. He complimented Aliya very well. His parents were frankly shocked that he had settled down so quickly and were completely in awe of Liz.

Maria, Tess and Isabelle stood with Liz as she waved goodbye as the Limo with Aliya and Les took off to head to the airport where they would go to Hawaii for their honeymoon. Liz felt the tears slowly running down her cheeks as her best and oldest friends hugged her. She looked over at her mother, understanding how she must have felt when Liz got married and went away.

"Come on, Chica, no more tears. This is a great day."

"Then what is that running down your cheeks, Maria?"

Liz guessed that in one way she was lucky; she had gotten used to Aliya being at school so that the jarring absence of her daughter was not so bad. But she would always miss that little girl she had picked up one terrible day in Afghanistan.

She smiled at the memory of some years ago when she had been at the Smithsonian to see the unveiling of her Super Apache as it hung next to other famous aircraft. She still managed to find time to sneak to Campbell and borrow one at least a couple times a year to stay reasonably current. Or depending on things would sometimes make it to Scotland and borrow one there. She felt only a visitor there anymore; no one was left who had been there when she was. They had decided to let those in the 160th and 161st trade back and forth and that was what had happened. She actually did run into one or two at Campbell but many had moved on past the SOAR into other aviation Brigades. The demand for the best never let up.

One could almost ask why they needed them anymore; since the collapse of the Iranian regime there had been more peace around the world then there had been in a very long time. The brush fires in the Philippines and Indonesia had been about the worst. Though she knew the 161st had had to go to southern Africa a couple of times, very quietly. And the Balkans still acted up as did the Chechnyans. Korea had to the surprise of many just quietly collapsed and the Song family killed by desperate and starving people. It had been a mess and South Korea had had all it could do to cope. The US had helped but in the end it was the grit of the Korean people that had finally allowed the long overdue Reconciliation and Reunification. But China was once again growling; but even there it was clear the hard line Chinese Communists had lost their grip; what few remained. They were inevitably heading towards some kind of democracy.

Looking around the world outside of China there was only one other problem brewing and it was an old one: Russia. It seemed like true freedom and democracy would still elude the people there. A new autocratic leader had worked his way into the power seat; the illusion of real democracy only a tattered threadbare sheet anymore. The Ukraine was clearly worried and was working at closer relations with Europe and the US, which of course ticked off the Bear. The Russian government was accusing the Ukraine of harboring and supporting the Chechnyan resistance. Most thought that was a crock of shit but the Russians hammered away at it. After years of stupidity, they had realized that they needed to invest in infrastructure in the oil and gas industry and that was paying dividends. More was flowing than ever before; and way too much of it was being spent on military programs. New fighters and Tanks and the like were coming online. Not quite as good as what the US and Europe had, but competitive.

The F-22 was now the acknowledged king of Fighters but its price had meant only 3 wings had been produced. The F-35 was a good aircraft but not as great as had been hoped. The next fighter was in the prototype stage and was thought to probably be the last totally atmospheric fighter; if rumors were true about the successor to other top secret programs. The Abrams block 3 had been upgraded and was still as good as anything around. The Stryker had quietly been relegated to the NG as the reality of it was it was too big a target. The Bradley was looking at being replaced but as of yet no decision had been made on what. But the unmanned world was gaining greater acceptance on the ground and in the air.

UAV's had made huge strides; but were not yet able to displace manned craft; but for recon and the like it was king of the world. Liz was amazed how far the successor to the Predator had come; the new one could carry a fair amount of firepower and was still very hard to spot.

As regards her first love the Super Apache was still king. Nothing else had come close yet. The regular Apache had been upgraded with the Fenestron tail and other advances so that it was not that much less capable than the Super Apache. The Blackhawks and the rest had not been replaced thought there were prototypes out there. Liz actually thought it was remarkable how few weapon systems had been replaced; upgrading and modernizing was the way just about everyone went anymore. The Chinese had finally after 10 years got their first carrier operational and now had two; with two more building. Clearly looking at rivalry with the US Navy. Something to be watched down the road.

Liz sighed as she pulled her thoughts away from the world situation and looked at the paperwork on her desk. It had taken them 4 months to really work on the Artillery doctrine; mainly because none of her people were really familiar with it. But they had gotten it done. She had just marked her first year in TRADOC and now only the Armor question remained.

They had tried to put an unmanned turret on the Abrams but had found out that an auto loader still did not get it done the way they wanted. The Lasers that were being worked on were still too much of an energy hog for anything short of a ground installation or an aircraft the size of the C-17. So outside of a new more powerful engine and modernized electronics the Abrams was much the same as it was. Still, the treadheads claimed, the best Tank in the world. And it probably was. It had not gone up against the new Russian tanks yet. Liz had talked to the intelligence wonks who quietly told her they had information that the latest Russian tank was being oversold. But the Russians had been pouring a lot of money into their Air Force and army. But interestingly they had not put much into their surface navy; they had modernized their attack and missile submarines but not hugely. Clearly they wanted to be ready for the Chinese or for a fight with the West. Ukraine had been also working on building up their military but clearly was no match for the Russians; hence their closer ties with the west.

The Armor school had moved from Ft Knox to Ft Benning; one of the many BRAC moves that made no sense and saved little money. She and her crew flew there for a 3 day meeting with the Armor School.

"All right we know the score. She was tasked to rewrite training doctrine for the entire US Army and we are the last major area to get the treatment. So it is up to us to convince her we know what we are doing. She will write it and it will be accepted. But we have the chance to shape it."

The main meeting started out with Liz being blunt as usual.

"Your tactics have changed very little since the preparation to face off with the Warsaw Pact. The chances of actually having a major tank battle are pretty slim; so most of the training and orientation needs to be elsewhere. However, we will make sure that is part of it. There are still a couple of tank heavy militaries out there that we might have to fight. And unfortunately they are big ones."

Everyone knew what she was talking about: Russia and China. Really the only two countries on earth with large tank forces left. And unfortunately two that the US had to consider as possible opponents.

"OK. The three advantages of the Abrams were that it was faster than any other tank; the 120 with DU rds could take out any other tank head on; and the DU armor added to it meant no other tank could take it out head on. The latest DU models are as far as we know able to still do that; and as far as we know there still is no tank out there that can fire anything that will penetrate the turret from head on. And well as regards speed that has not changed a whole lot either."

The top speed of the Abrams had always been OFFICIALLY 45 mph. But on the wall of the commander of the Armor School was a small framed copy of a German traffic police ticket given to a US Army Abrams crew that was tracked on the Autobahn in 1982 doing 162 KM per hour. Which by conversion is right at 100 MPH. The latest model with the new gas turbine engine of 2000 HP gave it a hp to ton ratio of 26 to a ton which put it right hp there with any other tank in the world; and its advanced transmission allowed it to apply that power to its tracks fully. It was not much of a secret that the Block 3 when it came out 7 years earlier had gone over 70 MPH. Now it was not smart to go that fast unless you really had to; it was very easy to lose control. But the potential was there. It still outranged just about any tank it would come up against and its latest laser site system was the acknowledged best in the world. It would get the job done.

The Bradley had been modernized and given a new engine so that it could almost keep up with the Abrams. The new version of the HELLFIRE missile gave it a longer reach than the TOW it used to carry; and just as capable of taking out any tank. Better yet it had the new fire and forget system so that the Bradley could fire the missile and then move on immediately. The 25MM Bushmaster could still take out any vehicle short of a tank head on and could take out a tank from the rear. Its protection had been improved; but it still could not take a hit from anything designed to fight tanks; and no one should have ever expected it to.

One good thing about the downsizing back in 2012 was that enough Bradley's had been freed up to fully equip every heavy and regular brigade in the Army so that no infantry had to ride into or through battle in anything other than a Bradley. The Heavy US Divisions (1st Armored, 1st Cavalry), had 3 heavy brigades; 1st Infantry-Mechanized had 2 Heavy Brigades and one Regular. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th INFANTRY Divisions had 1 Heavy and 2 Regular Brigades. The Total thus in the Regular Army was 11 heavy brigades. A heavy Brigade had two armored Battalions and 1 Armored Infantry Battalion. A regular Brigade had 1 Armored Battalion and 2 Armored Infantry Battalions. There were 3 mechanized divisions in the NG as well as 3 infantry divisions.

With the problem in Korea gone the 2nd ID had come home and had been based at Ft Riley. So now you had the 1st Armored and 4th Inf at Ft Bliss; the 1st and 2nd ID at Ft Riley; the 3rd ID at Ft Stewart and the 4th ID at Ft Carson, and the 1st Cavalry at Ft Hood.

The reorganization of 2015 had worked this way: an armored battalion had 4 companies of Abrams and a company of Armored Infantry. Each Tank company had 14. Each Armored Infantry company had 18 Bradley's each capable of carrying 6 men. The only really vulnerable people were those still running around in the Hummers and trucks that serviced the units and brought up the ammo and supplies. The Bradley Cavalry model had been converted into a mortar and heavy weapons carrier. A boxy vehicle that went with the GMRLS system carried the 120MM Mortars; while the heavy MGs and 60 and 81MM mortars went with the Bradley's. An Armored Infantry Battalion had one company of Tanks and 6 Armored infantry company's. The Heavy weapons were attached to the Battalions. The Artillery was still a mixture of towed 155MM Howitzers with the Infantry and M109A5 Self Propelled 155MM Howitzers with the Tank and Cavalry and 1st ID.

Liz also had the problem of reworking the combine arms doctrine; which had the Air Force supporting the Army and Armor, Infantry and Aviation all working together. Easier said than done.

Liz thus brought in as well the Aviation School and the Infantry school so that they could all get on the same sheet of music. She wanted to emphasize movement and fire at all times; no one should sit and wait if there was any real threat. Shoot and scoot. Never give anyone a stationary target if you can help it. And that way an enemy can never really be sure what you are doing.

The arguing and such went on for a full two weeks before there was enough agreement to start getting down to serious manual writing. All in all it took two full months to get it written. And then another two months to finally agree on everything.

The good news was that the new helmet and armor had performed as hoped and would be going into full production. Liz had been able to short circuit the still messy acquisition process by showing savings and speed. The carts would now be standard issue for all light companies. By the time Liz was celebrating her 40th birthday, all the changes were going into effect. She was just at the two year mark in TRADOC.

The Chief of Staff looked at TRADOC.

"You are serious."

"Yes. She has gotten everything that the previous TRADOC and I had wanted her to do in 2 years; we thought she would need 3. We really have nothing left big enough to warrant her efforts."

The Chief of Staff of the US Army considered this.

"Well I will need to talk to SECDEF about this."

"What do you suggest?"

"She would be wasted at TRADOC from this point on. Anything else for a 3 Star is frankly not going to be much of a challenge for her as regards staff or Pentagon duty. But XVIII Airborne Corps is going to move up so we have a 3 Star Slot there that is frankly tailor made for her. And the way things look, frankly, I want our best there."

The latest SNIE was not looking good for Europe. Specifically eastern Europe; most specifically Russia. The Chechnyans were causing big trouble after being driven underground and virtually hunted to extinction; it turned out that they had been just getting ready. They had launched half a dozen major attacks on Russia and they had all been very bloody and very public. Attacks in Moscow and most of the major cities in European Russia. Russia had accused Belarus and Ukraine of turning a blind eye to them. That was highly debatable but was the party line in Russia at the moment.

The XVIII Airborne Corps consisted of the 82nd, 101st, 10th Mountain and 3rd ID. However there had been proposals to substitute the 1st Cavalry for the 3rd ID. To give it more power. That seemed to be likely to happen soon. It was also likely that they might decide to attach one of the MEF's if needed. As well as either the 161st SOAR or the 160th SOAR depending on where it had to go.

Liz sat and contemplated the view from her office window; it was pretty nice but she did not see it. TRADOC had been rather vague about what he wanted her to do next. The last bits of it were pretty much done; responding to comments was almost done as well. The new training manuals and doctrines would be going into effect the next year. So what would he have her do next?

TRADOC was smiling as Liz came in to see him.

"First things first. You will be doing a whirlwind tour of our active duty divisions. A few days with each as basically an Inspector. Then after that comes this."

He handed her an official message and grinned as she looked at It in shock.

"Knew you would be surprised. But I totally agree with it; as much as I would like to keep you around you would be wasted being stuck here now. You got everything important done."

Max found Liz sitting in the sofa in their quarters as he got in. This was fairly rare and usually meant something.

"Ok, hon. What now?"

"Command of the XVIII Airborne Corps."

Max nodded thoughtfully. "That does not surprise me. Best place for you."

"Well we move to Ft Bragg. Not too far I guess."

But first came her tour. Her appointment was to be kept quiet until 1 September; so she had a little over 6 weeks until then. She decided she could get the inspection tour done first. She would take Jim and Sid with her; they would poke around like she did. The rest of her 'staff', 2 Majors, 2 captains and 3 Lts and the Gang of 6 would also spread around looking things over. They were well briefed on what to look for.

She decided to hit Ft Bliss first; Then Ft Riley. She would spend a week at each and that would take care of 4 divisions. Then 3 days at each. And they would not be told she was coming.

Liz came off the C-12 and was met by the airfield Commander; who was in shock at the sudden appearance of a 3 star.

"General Parker. No one told us."

"You were not told on purpose. This is a no notice inspection."

Liz went immediately to the ASP and from there the maneuver area, McGregor Range. She found the ASP in decent shape; but had some comments about a few things. She was at McGregor watching a company of Abrams practicing live move and shoot from the 1st Brigade of the 1st Armored when the commanding general pulled up.

General Summers knew he had to tread carefully.

"General Parker, I was just getting back in; my plane arrived just a half hour after yours."

"Not a problem General Summers. This was a no notice. Your ASP has a few small problems but nothing major. I notice that this company is using the box formation. Glad to see the new training doctrine being used even if it is not yet official."

"What do you wish to see now General?"

"My people are looking around your unit now. We can just talk."

The 1st Armored was in good shape; so Liz spent only one day looking them over before moving on to the 4th ID. Which was not in as good a shape. She spent 4 days and gigged the Commanding General on his ASP operation, his training SOPs for being out of date, and his equipment situation, which was not good either.

FORSCOM looked at her report and then at his Chief of Staff.

"I did have some concerns about the 4th ID. What do you think?'

"The general has only been in command for 4 months; so let's give him one more chance. We will do a follow up in 30 days."

"Reasonable."

The 4th ID commander looked at his staff.

"OK. The good news is that we get a second chance. The bad news is that we will need to show significant improvement or I will not be the only one out. You will all carry part of the can."

Ft Riley was next. Liz went straight there; catching them by surprise. But both divisions were in good shape; 1st ID and 2nd ID. She spent 4 days looking them over and saw only minor problems. She then went home and rested for a week then hit Ft Drum and the 10th Mountain. In two days they had some write-ups but overall was in good shape. She went right to Campbell and looked over her old division next. They were ready for her and she smiled as she came off the Jet and found the division staff waiting for her.

"General Parker, your old division welcomes you back.'

And they were in excellent shape; but then she expected if for two reasons: one, her old Deputy was a good division commander; and two, pretty much everyone was expecting her anyway.

She hit Ft Bragg and the 82nd next and they did well. Ending up with the 3rd ID at Ft Stewart, and the 1st Cavalry at Ft Hood. They had plenty of time to get ready but she felt they were in good shape anyway.

Two days after she returned the DOD announced her appointment as Commanding General, XVIII Airborne Corps.

She had decided to take Jim as her Chief of Staff; and the rest of her people as well. It was unorthodox but she did not care. It worked out that the XVIII CSM was due out so Sid could slip right in. As a matter of fact the whole staff was going so Liz was left with a clean slate. She began to go over personnel files in order to fill the positions. She wanted people who had been there and done that; she did not want anyone who had not deployed during the Iraq/Afghan wars. She noted that her Deputy Commander was also going out; so she was going to have to replace everyone. Then she found out that the Chief of Staff position was a general slot. So she called and found out if she could get Jim promoted.

"General Parker, it is possible but policy is that he go to command school first."

"So?"

"It is policy sir."

"Who changes policy?"

"Good god, just promote the man."

"But sir, policy…?"

"Major, just in case you have not noticed, policy is not regulation."

"Yes sir."

Liz smiled evilly as a week before she left for the XVIII at the TRADOC going away party she called Jim up to the front of the table at the mess hall.

"Jim has been around since I grabbed him to be my XO for the 161st. Kind of got used to having him around. So since the Chief of Staff position at the XVIII Airborne Corps calls for a Brigadier General, we had to do something."

Jim was stunned when his children appeared and pinned stars on his shoulders while his wife smiled through her tears.

Liz had gotten around to asking Army Personnel about who would be her deputy commander. Upon being told that several were under consideration she asked for them to have input. They gave her four. She looked them over then one jumped out at her. He had been Chief of Staff at SOCOM. She noted he was promotable. She smiled and picked the phone up.

SOCOM looked at his Chief of Staff and grinned. Brigadier General Roy Windom got suspicious. SOCOM had a wicked sense of humor.

"OK, boss. You got that look in your eye like you just got a chance to torture someone and since I am the only one in the room just get it over with."

"I guess it all depends on how bad you want that second star."

Now he knew he was in trouble.

"Not so bad I will feel like knawing off a leg or arm to get away."

"Doberman needs a new bitch."

"Oh, shit."

Roy Windom had graduated West Point in 2000. He had been swept up a little over a year later in the mess following 9/11. He had done well, going from a 2nd Lt in the Big Red 1 to a Major before leaving division in 2008 and hitting Staff College; then had gone to the Pentagon and had then escaped that with his birds in 2014. He had then gotten more command experience with a Brigade of the 3rd ID. Followed by more staff positions until he had gone to SOCOM in 2018 as a Brigadier. Now 5 years later he was going for his second star and was very interested in his next destination. And worried as well.

'Doberman' Parker was a force to be reckoned with. The trail of bodies of those that had not been up to her standards was very long indeed. It was rumored that the only command she had ever had that she had not relieved anyone was her last one at TRADOC. But that was leavened by the fact that the Division commander of the 4th ID had come within a whisker of getting the axe as his division had not performed well during a no notice inspection that she had given it. He had been able to survive when a second inspection 30 days later had shown significant improvement. But it was noted that that inspection had not been done by General Parker. So anyone that worked for her was faced with the fact that if you failed you were gone. No second chances.

Roy Windom was a confident man; he knew he was good. But being good and then facing her was another whole story. SOCOM had been a tough boss; but he had done well there in the strange world of Special Operations. Coming into it as only a straight leg had been tough but he had shown them he could get it done. But he had a feeling that that might be child's play. Being Chief of Staff to SOCOM was not like being chief of staff elsewhere; you are expected to shoulder a lot of the load of SOCOM instead of just running the staff. In many ways he had been more of a Deputy SOCOM then a Chief of Staff. Maybe that is why she wanted him. He had a hunch that being Deputy to Her was a lot like being Deputy to SOCOM. She had gotten her old chief of staff promoted to assume the Chief of Staff of XVIII Airborne Corps. The good news from all of this was if he did show her he could get it done his next promotion would be all but assured. She was the golden child of the US Army and anyone getting her stamp of approval would move on up as well.

There was supposed to be a Deputy for Operations but Liz had decided that her deputy would take that position as well.

Roy found this out the day he reported to General Elizabeth Parker, commander XVIII Airborne Corps.

Liz thought that the ceremony where she took command was well done; not over stated but not treated lightly either. She made a note that when it was her time to move on it would be done the same way. First thing the first day was welcoming her Deputy Commander.

"General Windom, come on in and grab a chair. We need to talk."

Roy sat down and tried to remain even and calm though he was nervous. Elizabeth Parker was 4 years younger than he was and had been a three star for two years already. Her dark hair had faint traces of grey; he was surprised she allowed it. But that was the only thing that indicated she was 40 years old. Her face looked years younger with only faint lines around her mouth and eyes. She was very tiny; the first thing he bet everyone who met her thought the first time.

Liz had noted he had looked at her hair; she had debated herself on whether to dye it but had in the end decided not to. With her dark hair, it was apparent very quickly.

"Yep, I have grey hair."

Roy blinked and then blushed very slightly; he had thought he had not stared that long.

"Just proves I am not as young as some think I am. Well enough of the fact I do not dye my hair. Do you know why I chose you as my Deputy Commander?"

"No General."

"Deputy to SOCOM; and while I do not know this one as well as the last one, I know how the SOCOM's typically use their Chief of Staff. The fact that you did well and was a straight leg showed a lot. So I picked you. First things first; when it's just us in the room it's Liz. Roy, I will be piling a lot on you since I have decided not to have a deputy for Operations. You are going to be doing that. In addition to being deputy."

Roy blinked at that. "Liz, why?"

"I do not believe it is necessary and just means more people who can screw things up. That is a huge problem in the US Army and the DOD as a whole; we have way too many chiefs. That dilutes the message and slows things up and causes other problems."

He thought about that and could see her point; SOCOM was a place with a lot fewer staff officers than any other major command. Looked like this place would be the same. Well at least he was familiar with it.

"One of the first things is that the Army and DOD have decided that the 1st Cavalry will be our heavy division so we have to bring them into the Corps."

"Heavier than the 3rd ; So we will have to figure that in any deployment situation."

"Exactly. But I like the thought of a heavier division. There really is no difference between the 1st Cav and 1st Armored. Both have the same number of tanks."

Roy cocked his head at that and Liz grinned.

"Surprised that I would so welcome a heavy?"

"Liz, your rep was made with Aviation and the 101st. Not the Heavies."

"True. But I have had a soft spot in my heart ever since that Company of Abrams got me out of that convoy cluster. And I think that any time we have to commit the whole Corps we are going to need the Heavies."

"OK, I can see your point. Do you have a hunch about that?"

One thing that had quietly gotten around about Doberman Parker was that she had hunches that had always been right. Call it woman's intuition or second sight or whatever, the story was that it had gotten her out of a lot of scrapes over the years. Add to that the clear fact that she was lucky. Napoleon had said give me a lucky Marshal over a good one and that was as true now as back then. She was both good and lucky; a powerful combination.

"Yep. Soon as the Chief of Staff told me I knew it was a good thing."

"OK. I guess we need to look at the difference in shipping then."

"Not really. Baring anything out of the ordinary, the Pre Po ships will get there first and they will fight with what is in them."

The full heavy division of Army PREPO (Pre Positioned) equipment was kept at Diego Garcia. It allowed equal time for going to all likely points. With Korea no longer a concern; with Afghanistan never likely to need tanks and Iran also no longer a threat, it had been questioned if they even needed it. So far they had been able to keep it. The other squadron of ships had been sent to base in the Atlantic and was now in Charleston. Every 60 days they were taken out for a three day run to make sure that they were ready to go.

Liz had checked on some things and had made the case to the Chief of Staff that if they needed one heavy division they would probably need two. So she had been allowed to plan in an emergency to use the 1st Armored as well. That would give her 3 light and 2 Heavy divisions. It would take with all available transport assets probably 4 to 5 days to get the troops anywhere; the ships would take as much as 10 days. The Corps operated on the idea that they could get a brigade of light troops plus their aviation brigade anywhere in 48 hours from the moment it was given; that was ready to rock not just when they actually got there. Liz right off the bat made it clear that to her what was important was when the unit sent would be ready to fight.

Jim had looked at her the first time they had a full staff meeting. He had done a good job of putting together a staff; Liz was confident that all of her people could get the job done.

"General, you seem to be saying that you want us to seriously look at adjusting the estimates so that they are different than what was previously used."

"I am. Frankly what has been used for too long was the moment the last major unit arrived. That means nothing. We need to know how long it would take for that last major unit to be ready to FIGHT. Nothing else really matters."

They spent the first month doing exactly that. The divisions were a little confused at the change; but Liz personally talked during a conference call about why she was changing the goal posts.

"Gentlemen, it really is simple. Previously all that was asked was when would all your units arrive; and not when they would be ready to fight. Now I just want to know the latter because frankly the former is not important."

They did not really like that because they then had to figure that out; and they had never had to do that before. And it was harder to do than to just figure out how long it would take to get their people there.

Liz had been looking at the map of the world kept in her office and her gaze kept going to Europe; specifically Eastern Europe. The heat between Russia and Ukraine had not cooled off; intelligence believed that since right at the moment the new Russian president was not totally sure of his position he was using the tried and true method of focusing attention on a foreign enemy. Now the Ukraine and Russia had had pretty good relations since they broke off from the old USSR. But that never mattered to a politician who was looking to hang onto and hopefully increase his power base.

So far it had been talk; but lately there had also been movement by Russia to penalize Ukraine by messing with their energy supplies. The Ukraine had developed its energy resources sufficiently so that Russia no longer had much of a lever; natural gas had been developed to the point where if they had to the Ukraine could do without Russia; in oil they already were. That fact had been proven when the Ukraine president had flat out said that Russia needed their money more than they needed their Gas.

Russia's contention that the Ukraine had been harboring Chechnyan activists had been dismissed by both the NSA and the CIA as BS. So anything further done by Russia was due to something else. At the moment there were no movements by any military assets of either country; so that was supposedly not something Liz had to worry about. And the Ukraine had not actually become part of NATO. But somehow Liz knew she needed to keep an eye on it; and had Jim get G2 to assign someone to keep on top of it.

A few weeks later just after Thanksgiving Liz decided to have a Staff exercise for the XVIII corps. That meant that the 4 divisions would bring their staffs to Ft Bragg and the Corps commander would give them a contingency and see how they did.

Liz had a meeting at least once a week with just Jim, Roy and Sid. This was her inner staff where she could let her hair down and really talk. She had deliberately not told the staffs what the contingency would be; and she would not tell hers either until they were all together. At this meeting they were going to thrash out what contingency they would use.

"OK, guys, suggestions."

Jim shrugged. "With the new criteria you have set up, anything we choose will be new for them."

Sid agreed. "Take a dart and throw it at the map."

Roy was looking at Liz.

"You already have a target."

Liz nodded. She got up and using a pointer hit a spot on the map.

They all looked and were surprised. This was not one that had been done before.

"The staff exercise will be held on 12 January."

At 0900 on 12 January, Liz faced the staffs in the War game room; which had been built specifically with this in mind. Big enough to house her staff and 4 divisional staffs all in the same room with enough tables and everything else to let each staff spread out maps and documents and the like to do their figuring.

"Our target is Ukraine. A Russian attack has either happened or is being threatened. We will work on two scenarios. First one is a threatened attack; then we will plan for one that has happened. The XVIII staff will come up with options for the second scenario and your divisional staffs will respond. The first scenario is this: The president orders heavy forces to Ukraine. We go first of course. Our mission will be to deter an attack; and failing that hold until reinforcements arrive."

Liz then went to her staff. "I want most of us working on scenario one; but I want some people looking at probable Russian attack locations and where we could set up holding positions that would allow the heavy forces to arrive."

The exercise lasted 4 days and when it was over Liz and her staff looked at what they had found out. Jim summarized it.

"It all depends on if the Russians are really serious. If they go balls to the wall they can have Ukraine sealed off from the sea before our Prepo Ships get there; which would leave us with light forces and no way to get the heavy stuff through. It would take 5 days to get to Odessa from Diego Garcia. If the Russians attack from the east with the goal of cutting off the coast, they can do it in that amount of time. The defensive line we bet the Ukraine would use would go down the Dnieper River. It would be a strong defensive position except in the south. There are two areas to attack that would probably be quickly penetrated. Then another assault to Sevastopol that would allow them to station aircraft that would effectively seal off any sea borne aid."

Liz nodded. "OK, I want plans on what we could do; for example the 82nd parachuting in and taking that airfield at Sevastopol and thus opening the sea route. Basically I want to see plans that would counter any likely Russian attack. Now maybe it cannot be done. But you need to show that."

The CIA head finished his brief. "Timshenko has always been a hard liner. But he early on learned that he needed to appear as a moderate to get ahead quicker. Now that he is President he can act like he has had a revelation; only a hard line leader can save Russia."

SECDEF looked at him. "Save Russia from what?"

"China. The difference between Timshenko and virtually every other Russian leader going back to the Czar's and Peter the Great, is that he is not fixated on Europe. He believes Europe is no longer the future. It is the past. He looks East. To Siberia and it's still mostly unexploited wealth. And he knows that China covets that wealth. China needs oil above all; and other minerals found in abundance in Siberia. That is one reason Timshenko has not cared about rebuilding the Navy; it is of no use as regards China. If you look at everything he has done in the 5 years he has been the leader it is clear. He gives lip service to the Europe first part of the intelligentsia, elite, military, etc. But he is obsessed with Siberia; exploiting it and above all keeping it for Russia. He believes that it is the key to the new Russian Empire that will be predominant on Earth."

The president was thoughtful. "He has hidden this pretty well."

"That is another reason he has looked at us with mostly indifference; and how we mistook that for someone not interested in remaking the Soviet empire. He also sees Europe as weak and not worth worrying about; even the Germans. And that certainly makes him the first Russian leader since Alexander to not really care about Germany. He also sees them as a very effective buffer against any plans we might have. The army and air forces of Europe have atrophied a fair amount; except for England and France. It would take years before they could become a real threat. And he looks at us as gradually once again withdrawing from world affairs, weakening and looking inward. Which is not a bad reading from someone thousands of miles away if you look at what is said and done here in Washington over the last 10 years."

The Chairman nodded slowly. "I would really find it hard to argue otherwise. We have withdrawn from Europe except for Ramstein and the bases in England. There have been calls to bring even them home. With Korea no longer a worry we have pulled back a fair amount in the pacific. Our primary worry for over 40 years has been the Middle East; once again something I doubt he has any interest in."

CIA nodded. "They have no need for anything the Middle East has. And he sees no reason to put any resources in there; or indeed anywhere else on Earth except Asia and only the part between Russia and China. Despite our watchful Eye on China, we do not confront them or really even bother them too much; and we still owe them a huge amount of money."

The president asked. "I am surprised he has not quietly approached us about allying against China."

"He is much too smart for that, sir. He knows it will not happen unless China directly threatens us. He believes that China is also looking almost solely at the Siberian resources. Which is valid as that is the only place they could get what they need. Nowhere else. And interestingly he sees the steadily weakening influence of the Communists as something that will threaten Russia; with the capitalist factions gradually gaining stronger they will be pragmatic and push to get the resources needed to feed China's economy. While we see that same situation differently; as things getting better and less threatening. Cure China has two carriers and is building two more; but they have as far as we can tell no plans to build more. That is not enough to threaten us; maybe enough to play defense. Which also figures into his thinking as well."

SECDEF was skeptical. "And just how do you know this for certain?"

CIA was smug. "For once someone was thinking ahead about 10 years ago and cultivated a young up and coming politician who really believed that Russia needed to be part of the world and not ruler. In the past two years he has steadily gotten to us recorded conversations of Timshenko talking to his inner core staff; the ones he trusts completely. What I am telling you now is the result of over 200 hours of recorded meetings. It is very consistent."

The Chairman was not totally convinced. "Is there any chance that you are being fed this?"

"No sir. It would require tremendous effort and some of these meetings consist of all the conversations he had with his inner staff over a period of months. And we have gotten no hints that this is a set up. More to the point, what does he gain?"

"To play the victim; to act like there is a conspiracy against Russia."

"And that makes him look weak; he is very concerned about that. And it makes Russia look like a victim and he cannot have that. Frankly, there is no good reason to do it. He has very solid backing; perhaps the most since Putin. He has placed his people in virtually every key position not just in the government or military but in the media; in the state run industries; in the larger commercial corporations he has cultivated strong ties there as well."

The president sighed. "Sounds like for once the CIA really is ahead of the game; maybe the first time ever. Well I guess it had to happen sooner or later. The real question is what do we do?"

The Secretary of State shrugged. "Not much we can do diplomatically; we could try and warn the Chinese but I doubt it would do any good."

CIA shook his head. "That could expose our source; he really believes that no one anywhere has it figured out and by all public measures he is right."

The Chairman was pensive. "Outside of making sure all our contingency plans are up to date what can we do?"

SECDEF was thoughtful. "Offer stronger support to Ukraine. Where does his feud with them come from anyway?"

CIA was certain. "He wants his flanks secure; he knows the Ukraine is vital there. He has managed to force all the other former Soviet Republics that matter to tow his line. Ukraine has not. He thinks he has to show them who is boss."

The Chairman was worried. "Is it possible he would use military force?"

"Russia no longer has the whip hand as regards gas or anything else economic to threaten Ukraine. And they need the wheat that Ukraine sends them. It is possible but there has been nothing hinted at in any of the recordings."

After the meeting the Chairman met with SECDEF.

"I will have plans updated for any contingency involving Russia; with particular attention to the Ukraine."

"Keep it quiet. We cannot afford to let anyone know we know."

The Chairman looked at FORSCOM. "She had their staffs planning WHAT?"

"Response to Russian military attack on the Ukraine."

"Why?"

"Have not talked to her about why. More than likely she was looking for a scenario they had not thought about and wanted to surprise them and make them think on the fly. It is what she does; one of the reasons she has been so successful."

At a hurried meeting very soon after the Chairman told SECDEF.

He sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I would like to think it is a total coincidence but why do I not believe it?"

"She is renowned for having hunches about bad news coming; I guess one should not be surprised. Should I have a talk with her?'

"No. We need to keep this as quiet as possible; the good news is that I bet they came up with anything that would not have occurred to your plans division. So no need to roust them and get anyone curious why. Just have them look over what she and her staffs came up with and critique it. It is a logical thing to do and would not attract attention."

Two weeks later the chief of the Joint Staff talked to the Chairman.

"Found very little to criticize about their plans. Pretty complete. Now follow on would be needed for more divisions but that is not all that much to do. A little weak as regards more Air Force assets but then that is not what they would be looking at anyway. The naval part was confined to PREPO; they did question whether the Navy would try and bring Carriers into the Black Sea."

"Would they?"

"Only on the direct order of the President. That is what it took to get them to go to the Arabian Gulf during Desert Storm. They would be incredibly vulnerable during the transits to the Black Sea. Though once there they would have plenty of room to maneuver; more than the Mediterranean."

The Chairman nodded. He would speak to the CNO quietly on this; the CNO was a former carrier captain.

The CNO was pensive. "It would be very risky to transit; we would need total air cover and the problem in the Black Sea is that the Russians still have diesel electric subs; even the old ones they have were very quiet. And they could easily send missile attacks as well. It would literally be only in the case of absolute disaster if we did not. Frankly, I would rather fly the squadrons off and base them off of land airbases and leave the carriers outside."

The Chairman had a quiet talk the Air Force Chief of Staff about airfields in that area.

"There are a number in the Crimea; most of them pretty good. If it came to it we could base a lot of aircraft there. They have 3 big ones and about a dozen others we could use if we had to. Of course we would need to bring just about everything with us to operate there."

The Chairman had a secret group of his plans division on the Joint Staff to start looking at basing a large number of Air Force and Navy and Marine aircraft on the Crimean peninsula.

When told about all this SECDEF just quietly shook his head and told him to keep in low key as much as possible and above all to make sure it did not get out.

As the winter eased and Spring began to come into sight, the situation in Russia began to unravel. The continuing accusations of harboring Chechnyan terrorists began to really tick off the Ukrainian people. Especially as there were no indications that it was in any way true. And the fact that other nations made no such accusations and indeed Germany was one of several that flat out said there was nothing to the Russian accusations at all began to really build up heat. There were large demonstrations in Kiev and other cities demanding that the Russians shut up. This, needless to say, did not play well in Moscow.

Another SNIE (Special National Intelligence Estimate) asked for by the President came out in Mid-March. The information from the source inside Timoshenko's inner circle was not part of it; that source was only shared to the President and a select few in order to protect it. But it was not reassuring; and when the latest information from the source was added the picture began to get worrisome. There were indications that Timoshenko was actually considering moving against the Ukraine militarily. What good news there was came from the fact that the great majority of his inner circle were completely against it. The SNIE predicted more Russian pressure to bring Ukraine to heel.

The President, SECDEF, SECSTATE, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the head of the CIA were the only ones that knew of the source. The President held a meeting the day after the SNIE came out.

The CIA chief was very worried. "Timoshenko is truly thinking of it; of taking the Ukraine by force. His advisors are virtually united against it but he is incredibly stubborn."

SECSTATE shook his head. "I find it hard to believe that he thinks it is necessary."

"He considers it a challenge to him. He is very ego driven; and an attack on his authority and influence in any way strikes very deep. Now a problem here is that he still sees the Russian Empire as it was during the Communist Years. So the Ukraine is still to him Russian. That of course is completely divorced from reality; but it seems that he sees the world as he wants to; not as it is."

SECDEF had been quiet. "The question is what do we do?"

The Chairman was direct. "No, the question is do we do anything?"

The President looked at him. "Are you saying we should do nothing?"

"Sir, I am saying that they are not part of NATO. They have turned down membership in NATO. So we have no obligation to defend them. We do not need anything they have; unlike the Persian Gulf oil. From a brutally pragmatic point of view, it is not our business."

They all thought about that.

SECSTATE was quiet. "That may be brutal, but it is also true. The damage the Russians would do to themselves would be with them for years. The USSR's crackdowns in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovokia in 1968, and their condoning of the Polish crackdown on Solidarity in 1981 had huge effects. As did their attack on Afghanistan in 1979. I find it hard to believe that he would think it was in any way a plus for Russia."

The head of the CIA pulled out another folder. "I have had our psychologist's work up a profile of Timoshenko. Their conclusion is that he is going down the same road other Paranoid ultra-nationalists have gone. He will become more and more certain that only he is right. And the continuing opposition by his advisors will just make it worse. Once this begins it becomes a vicious circle."

The Chairman was stubborn. "Once again I ask; why should we do anything? Why should we even consider putting our people in harm's way?"

The others had no answer.

Liz kept looking at the map of Eastern Europe; the intelligence coming out of there was not good. The Russian leader was getting tougher and tougher in his language and the people of the Ukraine were basically giving him the finger via large demonstrations. Liz wondered if he was really crazy or stupid enough to move militarily. And if he did would the US respond? The Ukraine was not part of NATO; had turned down membership. So really there was no reason the US would get involved at all. The Ukraine was not a huge exporter of oil or any other critical material. So unlike the Middle East the US would not have any dogs in this hunt. And frankly the Middle East was only a concern because so much of NATO got their oil from them. The US had not gotten a drop out of the Middle East for over 30 years. But Liz still worried.

The President had been thinking about things and had called in the SECSTATE, and old friend whom he trusted.

"The Chairman has a point in that we really have no business getting involved."

SECSTATE sighed. "Diplomatic failure is one of the primary reasons any war starts. On the other hand megalomaniacal leaders are the Primary reasons for wars. Which is what we would have here. The old saying was that once the hungry lion digests one meal, he will get hungry again is the reason that you get out your hunting rifle and take care of business. I have been thinking; and have had my staff thinking, what would the long term and short term effects of a Russian Military takeover of the Ukraine be. Russia certainly would become a pariah; but they can veto anything the Security Council considers. Europe is so fractured anymore that I am not sure just how much they would do. Especially considering how dependent they are on Russian gas. Trade sanctions would probably be symbolic and little more. I see no one stepping up as regards military action. Long term if the Russians get away with this; I do not know. But I do not think it would be a good thing. There is no justification at all and everyone would know it. It would just be once again the bully getting what he wanted and everyone else cowering and hiding. Would this embolden China to try and seize Taiwan by force? It could."

"This may sound callous but I will ask it anyway: in the long term would it be all that bad or just unpleasant and more of an irritant than a real problem?"

"I do not know sir. But if Timoshenko gets away with it then I do not see him hesitating the second time at all. And if the country starts to get ultra nationalistic again, then it could be very bad."

"A lot of if's and but's in there."

"Yes sir. But I also cannot see where it warrants us putting our troops on the line either."

The President slowly nodded. "I reluctantly agree."

But events have a way of making the unthinkable thinkable.

Europe was not blind to what was happening. While it was more conservative than it had been in a long time, it was not the type of conservative that condoned threatening countries that have done nothing wrong. And Europe had always been wary of an expansionist Russia; of an aggressive leader of Russia. And more and more Timoshenko was looking like one of them. Putin had been a real pain and a problem, but in the end had not been willing to actually use military force. Timoshenko, however, began to worry people in that he just might.

Needless to say it was the countries closest that worried the most; if keeping quiet because they were closest. The Balkan states had finally reached something that resembled as peaceable a situation as they had been in for as long as anyone could remember and they did not want it shaken up. So they began to publicly talk about Russia acting badly. This was picked up by Hungary and Romania and Bulgaria; then Poland and Finland. Belarus had been mostly cowed so they kept quiet but the former Baltic States of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia joined in the chorus. And the tempo spread West. The Liberals, somewhat butt sore at the election beatings they had endured over the last 10 years began to see this as a way to become relevant again and they began to make noise.

The problem with all this was that it was a red flag to a bull as regards Timoshenko. His paranoia and ego challenged each other as to which was insulted more. He began to snarl back and wave the gas supply not subtly at all. Since it was spring coming into summer that did not work as well as if it had been fall going into winter. The mocking that this stirred up just escalated his anger.

By mid April the noise was getting pretty loud; and he began to react with more than words. He announced that the price of natural gas would be increased by 25% the coming year to pay for more drilling and more infrastructure investment. And the new prices would start immediately. Needless to say that got a very big international Raspberry. And more protests started to pop up in other countries. Now Russia was the favorite whipping boy across the spectrum.

After the price hike the President called an inner advisor meeting.

The CIA had the latest word.

"It is getting worse. Some of his advisors are now starting to agree with him about showing how strong Russia is. Most are still against any real action but the natural tendency to resent ridicule and hostility by drawing together is having an effect."

SECDEF shook his head. "Just amazes me that they cannot see that they have caused all this."

CIA nodded. "The ones that do are keeping silent. Afraid of losing position and power."

The President asked "So what will they do next?'

"They are going to cut off all trade with the Ukraine and recall their ambassador."

"What effect will that have?"

"Not as big as it would have once had; the two are no longer so codependent as they once were. It will be equal pain on both sides realistically."

"The Ukrainian's will not back down?"

"Public support is very strong for President Youslev. He does not dare even if he wanted to. And since they have done nothing wrong I see nothing changing there."

"What is next?"

SECSTATE answered. "The Left in Europe sees this as a way of getting some political power back; the right never liked Russia anyway. So I see some real economic sanctions starting; and since winter is 6 months away the natural gas factor is not that much of a worry."

"And how will Timoshenko react?"

CIA was clear. "He will start sanctions right back. A trade war for all intents and purposes."

And that is what began to happened as April ended and May began.

Liz was more and more certain that things would erupt sooner or later in Europe. The only question is would the US respond militarily. And no one knew the answer to that one. So she just had her staff refine and update their plans.

It was a new experience for Liz; as a Corps commander she was not directly in command of fighting units; though there were a fair amount of support units directly in her command. She did take time out and visit them; and let them know she valued what they did.

The Divisional Staffs looked at the worsening situation in Europe then what General Parker had made them plan in January and they wondered if she had been privy to secret information. Others that knew her better had a different explanation.

"One thing you get when you talk to anyone that served with her in Afghanistan was that she would get hunches that always panned out. The Nuke incident in Pakistan; she went to the one that was trouble because she sensed that was the one that was in doubt. I think you are seeing that again with Russia."

The person who was feeding the CIA the information on Timoshenko was having to take extra precautions; Timoshenko's paranoia caused additional security measures. That was getting beat by using something that the new security sweepers did not consider; old fashioned wire recorders. They gave off no electronic signals that the modern sweepers looked for. It was bulky but the bottom of his briefcase was just big enough to hide it. He would then play it to a special program on his computer that buried it in a phone sex conversation; the digital signals hidden inside it. Porn and the like was an accepted part of that section of the world and no one questioned it too closely, as long as children were not part of it. Thus he was still able to send out his messages; it just took a little longer.

The messages went right to the DDI, the Deputy Director of Intelligence, the effective director of the actual working part of the CIA. The CIA head had ordered that no one but the DDI and one lower supervisor who had been the man who made the initial contact more than 10 years ago be involved in this source. Less chance of it being betrayed or leaked. The lower level supervisor had been relieved of all other duties and now concentrated on this source, code named Richelieu. That had been deliberately chosen so that if that somehow leaked, no one would think it concerned Russia.

The latest one was taken directly to the CIA head; one copy was made and that never left the office; it stayed in the special safe there. Right after printing it out, the message was erased in such a way that there was no possibility of anyone ever being able to rebuild it.

"Sir, this one is hot."

The CIA head read it and had to agree. He put it in the safe and locked it then called the president for an immediate meeting.

The inner circle was waiting. He looked at them.

"Timoshenko has ordered the Military to start to plan to take the Ukraine; effective date 1 August."

The President was ashen. "Was there any objection?"

"Two of the soft ones did and were told to go along or be removed. They folded and agreed."

"And by be removed…"

"If I was one of them there I would have serious worries about what removal really meant."

Even though this had been slowly coming, they were still all shocked.

SECSTATE was the first to speak. "We have to find a way to warn the Ukrainians."

The CIA head objected. "If we warn them now the Russians will know and Timoshenko will realize that he has a leak. We could lose a source that we cannot spare."

"But what is the use of such information if we do not use it?"

"We will have to wait for a time, long enough for Timoshenko to look elsewhere for the leak, like his military."

The President was firm. "How long?"

"At least a few weeks."

"Very well." He looked at SECDEF. "What will the first indications be?"

"Sir, the Ukraine is no pushover, if totally unable to fight the Russians on their own. I would bet that they will try for a quick move and strike for Kiev in the North and the Crimea in the south. Take the Capital and the only way any real help can arrive, by sea, and it is just about a done deal. Now the Dnieper and the lakes formed by the dams make a natural defensive barrier about a third of the way across the Ukraine. It is only the Crimea that really does not have much of a defense. I would bet the Russians would use Paratroops to seize the airfields then fly in more troops and plains to seal off the sea lanes to the Ukraine. A quick strike south towards Kiev which is only 200 miles from the Russian border, probably another to encircle Kharkov, and they would probably stop at that. They would not want to get drawn into a long war. They would cause as much damage as possible, let the Ukraine know once and for all who is the boss, and then pull out. And that would happen probably in about a month all told. Before anyone else could really respond in a way that mattered."

SECSTATE shook his head. "And the rest of Europe left realizing the big bad Russian Bear is back and wondering who will get bit next."

SECDEF nodded. "This would of course pretty much revive NATO in its original form. The countries of Europe would have to start spending a lot on defense again. With all the other added problems of paranoia and increased nationalism due to fear."

SECSTATE was pensive. "The Chairman asked what business was it of ours. There is your answer. Europe would once again want American troops stationed in Europe as proof of our commitment."

The President shook his head. "1948 all over again. A new cold war."

SECDEF nodded. "This would of course make Timoshenko increase defense spending; and coming off a victory like that he would have huge domestic support. And another vicious circle would start of each of us making a move and the other side countering it."

The Chairman, who had been silent, roused himself. "I really did not think he was unbalanced enough to do this. But I have to agree; if he gets away with it this time he will be more likely to do it again; and Europe will once again by the confrontation place. We will be drawn into it no matter what due to our treaty obligations. Though to be honest a united Europe should frankly be strong enough to do it on their own."

SECDEF agreed. "Yes they are. But I do not think having large military expenditures in Europe is a healthy thing in the longrun."

SECSTATE nodded. "In the end nothing good comes out of it. And a lot of money is spent there that should go elsewhere. And you add the increased nationalism that will stir up, and it is not a good thing."

The President sighed. "It really is a pay now or pay later situation, isn't it?"

No one in the room disagreed.

SECDEF asked for a word with the President.

"Sir, I think you should know about this." And described what XVIII Airborne Corps had planned in January.

The president was dumbstruck. "You think she had a feeling back then?"

"Mr. President, her career is littered with examples of her getting a feeling or hunch and it seems to have been right every time. So I guess this is just one more."

"And the Joint Staff found nothing to really find fault with?"

"Nothing that she would have been responsible for, like Air Force assets. Or the Navy beyond PREPO ships. The Chairman has had a quiet conversation with the Air Force Chief of Staff and the CNO. They both have been very quietly working on filling in that part of her plans. What I described as the likely moves the Russians would make came directly from what she ordered her people to prepare for and what the Joint Staff believe is the most likely Russian military moves."

The president sat back. And mused. "Patton always believed that one day we would have to take them on. For a long time everyone thought he was right – up to 1992. Now only 30 or so years later it looks like he was right once again. He believed in Reincarnation? Think that is who she really is?"

SECDEF shook his head. "Two more different people it would be hard to imagine. But who knows, really? She has been incredibly successful; and one thing they both have in common was the ability to see what the enemy was going to do ahead of time. Patton foresaw the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor in the early 30's; he was one who saw that the Germans would be a problem again even before Hitler took power. Early on he saw that the next great fight would be with the Soviets. Now she early on fixated on the place that the next war will almost certainly start, before anyone else really knew. The only reason we knew was our source; but she did not have it and still came up with the same conclusion at the same time. Does not matter I suppose. I hope that when it comes to all-out war she is as good as he was."

"She is our best." It was not a question.

"Yes sir. No real doubt of that. EUCOM is a good manager, but she is the fighter. Even though she has only been a ground commander of a Division she really shined there; and this will be a case of movement having to compensate for being outnumbered and outgunned. From that point of view she is absolutely the right choice; and the best we have."

"Very well. I want her clued into the source. Her only; no one else and she is to make sure that no one else suspects."

The CIA head was not happy to add another, but orders were orders and if she was going to be the one up front she deserved to have all the information on her enemies they had.

Liz looked at Jim. "No idea. I am told to head to the Pentagon tomorrow; and no reason why. To see the SECDEF."

It had been decided that SECDEF would brief her in; and if she decided she needed to know more they would slip her into Langley and have her go over the file.

"General Parker, you are about to be briefed in on the best intelligence source the US has ever had."

Liz was gobsmacked. For once the intelligence weanies and the CIA had done it right. Well. Maybe God does meddle now and then. Divine Inspiration was as good an explanation as any for the fact that for the first time ever they had the inside track on what was about to happen.

She told SECDEF she did not need to know any more about Timoshenko. He would not be running the war anyway. What she now needed was to know who the likely enemy commanders would be and what was known about them. He agreed to get right on it and have her briefed in when they had a good idea of who they would be.

Liz was thinking heavy thoughts on the way back to Bragg. She was almost certainly going to war again. Only this time not the little cog in the big machine; this time she would be running it, for all intents and purposes. SECDEF had made it clear that he and the Chairman and the President were going to let her be the primary commander on this. EUCOM would technically be the theatre commander but it was her who would make the tactical decisions.

XVIII Airborne Corps would be the battle command; there would be no army commander brought in. They would give her everything they could but in the end it was her war. Liz pushed other thoughts away and began to concentrate on what she would have to do. She got off the jet and motioned for Jim to follow her to her office where she pointed to the seat in front of the desk and then sat down at her desk.

Jim blinked when Liz looked at him with a blank face. He had never seen her like this before.

"Liz, what is it?"

"Jim, this goes no further than us right here until I say otherwise. Is that clear?"

Liz had never said anything like that to him before; and not in that manner.

"Clear, General."

"We are going to war by the middle of summer."

Jim was stunned. She just looked at him calmly.

"That was what the visit was about. They have extremely good intelligence that the Russians think they need to teach the Ukrainians, and everyone else, that they are still be big boys on the block. Mid-summer is when they think they will move. And it has been decided that if they do, we stop them."

Jim managed to get his mind in gear.

"Why are we involved? They are not part of NATO."

Liz sighed. "This was how it was explained to me. They figure the Russians will strike quick to take Kiev and the Crimea; that way they can seal off any resupply or help coming by see. Overwhelm the Ukrainian Air Force and control the air. Do a fair amount of damage then leave. Probably all done inside a month. Not long enough basically for anyone in Europe to do more than make speeches. They then go back home and the rest of Europe is reminded of who the boss is. Now Europe will scream and rant and rave but that is about all. Russia has the VETO and the Security Council is therefore nothing. The rest of the UN; not much more. Sanctions? Well Europe still needs Russian gas for winter. How long does righteous indignation last when you are freezing? Now long term is where it starts to get nasty. Europe will of course start to rearm. No choice. Billions spent that could be spent elsewhere. That is not good. Then you will have with that the increase in nationalism. Not a good thing either. And of course the Europeans will once again demand US soldiers stationed in Europe as tangible evidence of our commitment. Overall what the President and his advisors think is a new Cold War. They are looking at this like it is 1948 all over again. No one wants that. They look at it as pay now or pay later. If we punch them hard in the nose now, that will weaken Timoshenko. His people will blame him for all this and they should. Just maybe to the point where he is kicked out or so weakened that he cannot pull anything like this again."

Jim slowly nodded. "I can see their point. But won't this war kind of cause all of it again no matter what?"

"Maybe. But they have decided that it is better to act now then wait and possibly have to act later and in a much bigger way. Small war now rather than a really bigger one, with possibly nuclear weapons, later on. I think that is the real deciding factor."

"Nukes. Had not thought of that."

"No one has tactical nukes anymore. But they could come back. The Russians will be stunned by our moving like we did. Then if we leave as fast as we came they cannot say much about us being a continuing threat, can they. What this is, frankly, is a wake up call to them. We are going to whap them upside the head with a 2 X 4. And hope they get some sense. Maybe it will not work and we have a new Cold War. But I agree that it is better now then later. The last time Europe did not act when someone went nuts was in 1938. Or to be more to the point earlier on. When Hitler had his army march into the Rhineland, they had orders that if the French started to move to oppose them they were to turn around and march right back. But the French did nothing. They and the Brits kept doing nothing and Hitler got stronger and stronger and bolder and bolder. Maybe this time we can nip it in the bud."

Liz began to think about what to do. She had been told plain that the source had to be protected. Therefore no hint of this had to be let out. That was why she had been tough on Jim. For the time being they could do nothing. But she could on her own start thinking and planning.

SECDEF had told her that they would send everything they could to her. She would get the 1st Armored as well as the 1st Cavalry. The Marines would be sent as well. After that it would be whatever they could get to her. But that would take time. So she would need to get the job done with 3 light and 3 heavy divisions, counting the Marine MEF. They had no details yet what forces the Russians would use; and of course the Ukrainians would be fighting as well.

IF the Russians did the smart thing and take the airfields on the Crimea, the first thing she would have to do would be to take them back and then load them with all the Air Force, Navy, Marine Air Power she could get. To protect the PREPO ships bringing the heavy stuff. Her light divisions would have to hold and stay intact until the heavies could get there. One thing that she had asked SECDEF and he had told her would be a presidential decision would be whether they could strike Russia. Not just attack the forces in the Ukraine. That of course risked escalation. But giving the enemy safe haven harked back to the Vietnam war and to the Afghan war and the Taliban running into Pakistan and hiding. She knew that was going to be a tough decision. She had a hunch it would come down to how well she did. She felt that if she demanded it that it would be approved; but the risks were huge. Yet if she did not go for it, she might have much higher casualties. She would have to cold bloodedly count her dead and make a decision.

The President called another meeting to see what their next steps would be. Already the military was doing what it could without tipping anyone off. Now for the foreign side of things.

"When do we tell the Ukrainians?"

The President looked around at his inner circle.

SECDEF was first. "When we hear in the meeting a confirmation that the military has been working on it."

CIA agreed. "That is the best way. That way if it gets out Timoshenko is suspicious of his military. Not his inner circle. That protects our source."

The president looked at the others who nodded.

"OK. That is settled. Now the tougher question. Who do we tell among our allies and when?"

"Brits first; and fairly soon. After that, well, that really is an open question. Poland, Romania, Hungary, and Slovakia all are in Nato and all border the Ukraine." This from SECSTATE

"We are closest to the Polls, so they should be first. After that the others."

SECDEF stated.

The president nodded. No surprises so far. "Will any of them help the Ukraine?"

SECDEF shook his head. "Not likely. For one with the exception of the Polls none of them have the kind of military that could really help on short notice. For two, none of them really want to get into anything with Russia. They have to live with them."

SECSTATE mused. "The Polls are a possibility. They have a long and unpleasant history with Russia. I would not be surprised to find a fair number of them not all that adverse to kicking Ivan in the Balls if they can."

CIA was thoughtful. "That is a possibility. We can ask anyway."

"That brings up my next question. Who do we think will come in with us?"

SECSTATE sighed. "Outside of the Brits, no one with any real muscle. The Germans probably have bad memories and frankly that would be very chancy anyway with the Russians. Or frankly with the Ukrain. They suffered a lot from the Germans in WW2."

SECDEF nodded. "And the Bundesware is really soft anymore. It would take them a couple months of training to really be ready. Though the Luftwaffe would be good to have; they are still a quality force."

"Anyone else worth considering?"

"France would be good but I doubt they want any part of this. They really have no beef with the Russians at all. Outside of them no one is really either in the position or have the forces to be worthwhile."

The president sadly nodded. About what he had expected.

"What is the condition of the Russian military and the Ukrainian military?"

SECDEF took this of course.

"The Ukraine has a professional military; the quality is quite good. Not as good as the Brits or French or US, but not bad at all. Their army works on the Corps and Brigade system; no divisions. They have 17 ground brigades. 12 Infantry and 5 Armored. Around 500 total tanks and they are decent. Their Air Force is rather small but good. One positive factor is that they know their opponents very well; of course their opponents know them very well also. The Russians have a core professional officer corps and 12 month conscripts. They do have a huge reserve; but as regards a short term war that does not matter. In the area within 500 miles of the Ukraine, they have 12 divisions. 4 Armored and 8 Infantry. Basically around a 2-1 edge in all areas, and slightly more in tanks. Their air force has a 4-1 edge. That is one area where we can really make up the difference."

The President looked at the Chairman.

"I want your honest opinion on how you think this will go."

The Chairman took a deep breath; he had been wrestling with this for several months now.

"If the Russians do not get total surprise it will be tough for them. Frankly sir if we can get our Air Forces in position early on I think we can stop them. But then what happens next? Do they push or withdraw? If they push, then it becomes a numbers game and they have a serious edge there. Not to mention then it becomes more of a US vs Russia war and then you have to start looking at nuclear options. They will anyway. I think the Russians if they start seeing just before they attack signs that the Ukraine is not going to be caught by surprise will commit more of their military to the initial assault. They can get several more divisions there fairly rapidly. And more of their Air Force. Now what helps us here is Timoshenko's worries about China. He cannot afford to shoot his military wad in the West in his mind. At a certain point if we can talk the Chinese into starting some maneuvers it could be very valuable."

SECDEF sighed. "There are a lot of things we cannot predict, sir. And we also have to be very sure of our goal. Is it to keep the Russians from starting a new cold war; or just keeping them from getting what they want? Frankly sir if we were to give the Ukraine a months warning the Russians would see that and I doubt that they would attack; maybe they would but it would be much more of a gamble. IF we think that we need to weaken Timoshenko seriously or put him in the position where he could be ousted, we need him to attack and be defeated. What it comes down to sir, is how much of a threat is he?"

The President slowly nodded. "I guess that is the key. Is he worth thousands of US casualties and tens of thousands of Ukrainian casualties to remove?"

The CIA was very quiet when he said this. "Sir, if the goal is to remove Timoshenko there are better and more certain ways to do that."

Everyone in the room was silent. No one really wanted to answer that.

The President realized that this was his call, and his alone. Knock off Timoshenko and it is very possible that nothing happens. That violated some laws but did that really matter? He thought of thousands of US dead and wounded and realized his duty to them was to find out. He looked at the CIA head.

"How long to set it up? It would have to happen in a way that could not be traced to us."

The CIA head was an old Washington hand. He knew one of the reasons why the question was phrased as it had been. There were probably others.

"I will have to check on that, sir. But to be honest I do not think I could get it done that way before they start a war."

"But if we warn the Ukraine and they deter the Russian attack?"

"Then there is a lot more time and it probably can be done."

The President slowly nodded. He looked at the others.

"That is what we will do. We will continue to make all military and diplomatic preparations for this war but we will do our best to deter it and then have Timoshenko removed."

Despite the fact that all had tacitly agreed on working to assassinate a foreign leader, the atmosphere in the room was better. Much preferable that one man die than thousands.

Liz knew that she had to tread carefully; not tip anyone off. So she and Jim spent a lot of time by themselves looking over plans and preparations. The conclusions drawn from the January Exercises and the Joint Staff critique were refined and polished. With enough time they knew they could have very good plans ready to go.

The president sent the SECSTATE to talk to the Brits at the end of May. He was to tell the PM and no one else.

The PM sat back in shock. There had been no real hint of this. He was going to have to have a word with his intelligence people once he could. But he did agree with the plan. Cold bloodedly it was the best way to do it. Timoshenko was clearly someone that could not be left in control of a major country with Nuclear weapons. He pledged British support if war still came.

The CIA head had found that he was looking hard every day for the sign of a message from Richelieu. They usually came every 3 to 4 days. Since the last meeting with the President they had slowed; now only every 5 or so days. So far no change; but no mention of any more military plans. He was very carefully beginning to look at setting up the operation to remove Timoshenko. After thinking about it, and the need to make sure that it was never traced back to the US, he knew it would have to be a contract job. Pay someone enough money and they will be willing to do just about anything. The problem would be to set up the middlemen to the point that it could not be traced too far back; and then to have the necessary money moved along without it being traced. He realized this would take many months if not longer. First to find someone that would be willing to do it; and then find a way to get the money to him without anyone knowing. He had considered one of the groups that opposed Russian policies; but working with Terrorists had many problems; chief amongst them was the fact that Russian intelligence could have penetrated them. He began to look at members of the old Russian mafia that had been crushed almost 7 years ago. They had a grudge against any Russian leader. And so he began to look for his middleman; the one that would start it.

He knew it could not be anyone with any ties to the CIA. So he quietly had some hacking done; he had come to the conclusion that they needed someone from the drug area to start it. Meth and Cocaine were still a big problem even if the poppy plant was all but extinct. He gave his hackers this criteria; someone with connections to the drug cartels, who needed money badly. He would be paid to start it all; and there would be no way to trace him to the US.

It took a few weeks but his hackers came up with a name. A drug dealer, with some ties to the Russian mafia, who had been caught but had been able to slide some and only spent a few years in jail; and had been able to hide some money. But not a lot. The CIA head carefully worked with his DDI and they were able to launder $5 million. A former DEA agent who had been caught and had turned evidence but was just about broke was hired by an agent who was careful to hide his identity. For $1 million he contacted the Drug dealer who was living in the Caribbean now. He handed over $2 million in cash with another $2 million promised to be delivered once the contract was completed. And the Drug Dealer was warned about just trying to pocket the money and run.

The CIA head by the beginning of July knew that the process had begun. But it was likely it would take several more months to be done.

Meanwhile the meetings were still going on in Timoshenko's inner circle; it was not until mid-June that he mentioned it again. The attack would come on 1st August as planned. There were some maneuvers and exercises that had been known about that could be used to get the units ready and moving.

The President then authorized the SECSTATE to inform the Ukrainian president. On 1 July. He would meet with him on a tour of Eastern Europe that had been scheduled as soon as the first hints of the Russian plan had come out. With this in mind. He handed the Ukrainian President a note written in Cyrillic detailing what the US believed was going to happen; but now how they knew.

That evening the Ukrainian president carefully arranged a talk with his Defense Minister and his head of Intelligence. This had been calculated to make sure no one could overhear.

They were both stunned; then thoughtful. The Intelligence chief spoke first.

"There have been some signs, but nothing conclusive. I was looking at them but I had not reached that conclusion."

The MOD was quiet. "I have been worried about Timoshenko. This does not really surprise me."

"What do we do?"

The MOD was thinking. "We will call for a no notice exercise one week before they were to attack; we will do it in the center. They will see that our forces are alert. We can put one third of the active Army and the entire Air Force on it; but no movement towards the borders. The Russians will get the message. Their exercises will end and they will have to walk away."

The President nodded. "The Americans pledged to send forces if the Russians attack anyway. Clearly they hope by warning us to prevent this."

The Intelligence chief was very curious. "How could they know? They had never been able to penetrate the Russian high command or get anyone close to the Political leadership before?"

"IT is probably easier now to do it. And I would not be surprised if this was not started when that Russian Spy ring was discovered back in the middle 2000's. They probably wanted to get back at the Russians."

The other two nodded at the MOD's observation. It made sense.

The president looked at the other two. "No word of this must get out. We must make sure the Russians are surprised at our lack of surprise. With no time to change their plan; giving them the only option of not starting anything at all."

Liz looked at the calendar. 2 weeks to go. The last 2 months had seemed to crawl by. She had been given permission on the 1st of July to start getting her staff ready. But to not give details. The last two weeks had been very busy as they carefully looked over all the plans. The current plan was that the PREPO ships in Charleston would go out for their normal bi monthly cruise one week before the 1st of August. Normally they went out for 3 days and then came back; with minimal crews. This time the crews would be still minimal when they went out; but would be increased to full out at sea and the ships would head straight for the Mediterranean. They would be in the Med before hopefully anyone knew. The PREPO ships of the Marines and the Army at Diego Garcia would start moving 5 days before and hit the Suez canal at 3 days before. The idea was to have both groups of ships near the Bosporus straits the day of the attack. The Turkish government had been quietly informed at the same time as the Ukrainians had. They had also been shocked but had agreed to the passage. After careful consideration no US Carriers would be sent to the Straits; but 4 Carrier Air groups would join the Air Force contingent to be stationed on the Crimea.

Andrei Timoshenko looked at the calendar. Soon his plans would be done and he would once again be leader of a country the entire world feared. He had been careful with some of his plans. The first one would start this day.

The President of the Ukraine looked at the calendar. At noon this day the Defense Minister would call for the exercises; one week before the attack. He had a meeting with him and his intelligence chief; who had been able to from various sources confirm what was about to happen. But he admitted he probably would not have been able to give a warning in time; if he had not been specifically looking the signs were not that great. The Russians had been very good at hiding it. Only now were there more signs.

The President looked at the two men and nodded. The Defense minister lifted the phone.

"This is CNN Breaking news. The Ukrainian capital office building has collapsed; it is believed that the Ukrainian President and other high officials were in it. It does not appear to have been an explosion; the Building was over 70 years old. More to come."

The president looked at his advisors in the hastily called meeting. The full cabinet had only been briefed the day before. The CIA was shaking his head.

"I should have been looking for this. Makes a lot of sense."

"But the Ukrainian military will now be on alert."

"True. But if it looks like a natural collapse then they will go off in a couple of days. And I bet that no one survived that knew what was going to happen. The Ukraine president indicated he was keeping it very quiet. The MOD and Intelligence head are thought to have been killed as well; and it's a good bet he told no one else."

The Russian president smiled at the pictures. Of course he had already sent official condolences; appearances must be kept up. He turned to his inner circle.

"The agents used for this were carefully chosen by our Security chief. Small amounts of explosive were specifically placed. It was an old building. It will take them weeks to realize what happened and by then it will be too late."

The Deputy head of the Ukrainian intelligence looked at the notes his chief had left. Now it all made sense; and he could see it. He asked for an immediate meeting with the Prime Minister, now the acting President. It had been a full day after the explosion; they had 5 days until the Russians attacked.

The Prime Minister was a cautious man. He had already ordered the Military to stand down; go back to their barracks. He did not want to stir anything up. This had been a terrible accident but no need to cause more problems.

The Ukrainian Foreign Minister was stunned at the note the American Ambassador had just given him. He demanded an immediate audience with the PM. But was told that next morning would have to do. The Intelligence chief was told the same thing.

Liz had looked at the news reports then at Jim.

"Decapitation."

Jim nodded. "Tactically a smart move."

At 1100 on the 28th of July the PM was confronted with the news from both his intelligence chief and his Foreign minister. In shock he slowly nodded then sent them away while he thought. He looked at the decanter on the mantel and decided he needed a drink.

The Russian intelligence chief and Security chief smiled as they saw the Ukrainian military stand down. The Ukrainian PM was a weak man and a drunk. Which is why this had been calculated.

The CIA shook his head. "Their PM is a weakling and a drunk. I bet he is getting smashed right now. Got to give credit to the Russians; this was very well done."

The President was grim as he looked at the SECDEF. "The PREPO ships are moving?"

"Yes sir on schedule."

"Everything else?"

"The transports are being brought in now; quietly as possible. We are moving."

The Foreign Minister and the deputy Intelligence chief had met. Clearly the acting President was incompetent. So they began to contact others. But this took time; and the 28th passed.

The morning of the 29th found the PM passed out drunk in his office; a cabinet meeting was called and the Foreign Minister then explained the note from the Americans; and the Deputy Intelligence chief was able to show that the Russian exercise forces were carefully but definitely moving towards their border. In accordance mostly with the exercise plans that had been announced months before; but the Russian Air Force was also moving; and that was not part of the plans. Fear permeated the room. Finally at 1800 on the evening of the 29th The PM was relieved as unfit for the office. Rancorous debate then ensued at who would replace him. The Deputy PM had been killed in the building collapse as well. It was not until 0200 on the morning of the 30th that a new PM was chosen. He gave orders for the Military to mobilize.

Liz was deep into preparations; the transports had arrived and in the 5 divisions she had been given the troops were loading. She looked at her watch. It was 0800 July 30. She was deliberately moving up the date; she was willing to bet that now since the Ukrainian military was starting to go on Alert the Russians could move it up by at least a day. She was right.

Timoshenko was furious. "How could they know?"

The Security Chiefs and Intelligence Chiefs cowered.

"We do not know how the Ukrainians know but they do."

"Launch the attack now."

His defense chief shook his head. "We can go 24 hours early; but that is all. The units are still a day away from the border."

"Then they will travel non stop until they do. I want the Air Force to attack on the 31st as well."

Liz left Bragg to go to Washington; so far no one had noticed that the PREPO ships have moved; surprising but since everyone was watching the Ukraine and now that there were mentions on the media and elsewhere about Russian units approaching the Ukraine borders no one was looking anywhere else.

The President and his inner council were meeting; they were waiting for General Parker and General Wallace, EUCOM head who had been brought in from Europe for this.

Liz entered the White House for the first time since getting her second Presidential Unit Citation. She was quickly escorted to the Situation Room.

General Ed Wallace knew he was only the figurehead for this operation; while part of him resented that he was pragmatic. Parker was the one that should command, there was no debate about that. He would just hold her coat.

Liz sucked it up as she entered the Situation room and was put right next to the Chairman with General Wallace on her other side.

The President looked around the room. "We are all hear now. I want the Chairman to give us an overview.

The Chairman started the video. "Our forces are one day away from the Bosporus Straits. Our Light troops are boarding their aircraft now. The 160th and 161st had also been tasked and are moving. The Ukrainians are moving to their defensive positions to protect Kiev; and are moving to face the forces the Russians will be sending to attack Kharkov as well. The Crimea is on alert; but there are only small forces there. I believe they will get some reinforcements that if we are lucky will arrive just before the Russian Paratroops do. The Polish have agreed to give our Air Force and other units bases to use which is a big help. The 161st and the 3 Air Wings will be there tomorrow. The Navy Squadrons and 3 more Air Wings are going to be ready to hit the Crimea once we take it back. General Parker?"

Liz stood up and moved to the Map on the wall.

"The 82nd Airborne will drop a brigade on the three main airfields on the Crimean Peninsula. Once they are seized we will fly in everything we can. First will be the Air units to make sure we have control of the air. Then the 160th will come in to allow us to move and support more assaults; if necessary to take all the smaller airfields there. The Crimea will be our primary base. We need to give the PREPO ships full cover so when they land at ODESSA they can offload safely. All the troops will be flown into the Crimea at this time; once I can get contact with the Ukrainian command that might change; would love to get them closer to the equipment. Once they have married up with their equipment they will then began to move where the need is greatest; either to protect Kiev or to relieve Kharkov; which I expect to be surrounded on the first day." Liz paused, and then looked at the president.

"My preference is to not play defense. The quicker this is ended the better for everyone. I intend to attack the Russian columns and their rear area; to destroy their support and supply system. I will have the 82nd reload as quickly as possible and will drop them again behind the Russian main columns to cut them off. I will use the 101st in the same way. The 10th Mountain will be my reserve; but I intend to commit them no later than the second day. We can move faster and better than the Russians and that is our edge. I want to cut up their columns and their forces and destroy them. I will hit them from the top and all sides at once if I can. The Marines I intend to have land at Mariupol, near the Russian Border, and go straight North. The Russians will have to wonder if we intend to invade and that will draw attention and resources." She looked at the Commandant.

"Sir, I chose the Marines because of their organic support and ability to have everything they need right there. They will be to an extent exposed and will prove a very attractive target."

The Commandant slowly nodded. "General, I can assure you that the Marines will attract a lot of attention. I agree with your plan."

The Chairman nodded. "As do I."

One by one all the service chiefs nodded as well; followed by SECDEF.

Liz took another breath. "I need to meet with the Air Force and Navy and Marine tactical commanders ASAP."

The President nodded then looked at General Wallace.

"General Wallace will be theatre commander. It will be up to him to ensure that the fighting troops get everything we can get to them. And to make initial contacts with the Ukrainian military."

General Wallace nodded. "I will be leaving for Europe as soon as this meeting is done; I will be flying right to Poland and from there to contact the Ukrainians."

SECDEF looked at the Chairman. He nodded. "I have already gotten in contact with the Tactical Commanders for the other services. But I want one thing cleared up as of now. General Parker will be the Officer in Tactical Command."

The President nodded. "It is so ordered."

The Chairman got all the commanders together at Camp Lejeune, ND. Lt General Barton Smith was the MEF Commander. Lt General Weldon Briggs was the Air Force General who would command all Fighters and Bombers; and would also command the Navy and Marine Corps Squadrons. The Deputy Commander of AMC, Lt General Joshua Dixon would be the man to take care of all supply matters. Vice Admiral Jack Johnson would be the Senior Naval Officer.

Liz deliberately delayed so that she was the last one in. She took a deep breath and centered herself. This is what she had been pointing towards ever since deciding to reach command rank. She headed towards the meeting room.

ATTENTION shouted the MEF Command Sgt Major as Liz walked in the door.

"Be seated. I want this over fast so that we can get to where we need to go. I expect the Russians to launch their assault at dawn tomorrow; they will move up their start time. They will probably have at least one full day to consolidate around the Crimea. That is what they think anyway. The 82nd hits them at dawn on the 1st. Just to clean up the command questions, I am in overall command of the combat area. General Smith will be in overall command of Ground Forces; General Briggs all Fixed wing forces and Admiral Dixon all naval forces. The helicopters will remain with their ground components. The exception there are the 160th and 161st which will be under my sole command. Our initial goal is to secure the Crimea; then get all available fighter and bomber assets there. The exceptions to those are the Units that are basing out of Poland. At this time I am reluctant to put any of our Aviation Assets on the mainland. General Briggs, what is your take on that?"

"I agree General. The distances are such that with the exception of the forces in Poland everyone is almost at point blank range for aircraft. My worry is on the mainland opposite of the Crimea. There are several airfields there. Will we be allowed to attack them?"

Liz grimaced. "Not at this time due to escalation fears. But General, the minute you believe it is critical that we do let me know and I will go straight to the president on it."

He nodded.

"General Smith, you got my initial plan?"

"Early this morning, General, and my staff have gone over it."

"Questions or comments?"

"We are in agreement that at this time it's the best we can do until the situation clarifies itself as the Russians attack."

"The landings on Mariupol?"

"Risky but I agree with the reasoning. As long as we have at least a neutral situation in the air I am not worried."

"Admiral Johnson?"

"General, I see no naval problems as long as we can get the PREPO ships in. As regards the landings, I am worried about any Russian submarines but I am not sure what we can do beyond our standard Anti-submarine tactics."

"Admiral, if you want something else let me know."

"We will have half a dozen anti-submarine ships and that is all that is within range. Really nothing else we can do."

Liz nodded. No use worrying about something you can do nothing with.

"General Dixon, your concerns?"

"General Parker, it all comes down to how long this will last. As long as we do not lose any ships, we should have enough of everything to operate without resupply for 2 weeks. After that we will need more."

Liz nodded again. "Air Transport command will have aircraft on call for critical parts and needs. As long as you do not need too much or anything too large we should be OK. I do not plan on intensive combat continuing that long. But this is war so any plan made now can be shot to hell tomorrow."

They all knew the truism of that comment. Liz looked at Admiral Johnson.

"What is the ETA on the two America Class ships with all the Marines Helicopters and F-35B's?"

"They are right behind the PREPO ships and in front of the Marine MEF ships. They should all arrive tomorrow evening and be waiting for the cover of our aircraft to move in."

Liz looked at General Briggs. "How do you see things General?'

He took a deep breath. "I believe that the Ukrainians, as long as they do not get caught on the ground, will do a good job of chewing up the Russian Air Force. Probably more than the Russians think. Our Aircraft arrive in Poland tonight. They will strike tomorrow. I think that until we get the Crimean airfields in operation it will be dicey." At that moment a Marine officer came into the room and went directly to Liz and handed her a message. She looked at it and grinned – it was a feral grin that impressed everyone in the room. She looked up.

"The Turks have agreed to let us stage Aircraft around Ankara. General Briggs?"

"Great news. I was hoping but not expecting that. We can cover the Crimean area well from there. We have aircraft on the way and they can land at Ankara and refuel and be ready. General, with your permission?"

"GO." He left the room almost at a run. Liz smiled. This was a more confident smile.

"So far so good. OK. Any more questions?"

There was silence. "Very well let's get the hell out of here."

That had taken 35 minutes all together. Liz waited until all the others left and stood and looked at the map again. Her C-20 was waiting for her and her staff was already on board. She was glad they had modified them for air refueling; so they would head to Ankara first.

At 0500 31 July the Ukrainian Central Air command was jammed suddenly. The General in charge swore and hit the alert button. All airfields were expected to be empty in 30 minutes. He went to the operators.

"Is there anything you can do?"

"We can go for short gain and get some return, but that will only be good from about 50 miles in from wherever the radar tower is."

"Do so. Show the returns from our borders."

Within 15 minutes they could see blips heading their way.

"How long to our border?"

"At present speed 2 minutes."

Two minutes later the radar screens began to go blank. The General grimly nodded. The Russians had destroyed them.

"Shut down all other radars NOW."

If they were using HARM missiles that could save some units for later use.

The Acting Ukrainian President had moved to the Civil Defense shelter. His staff believed that the military command posts would be targeted but possibly not this one; and it was about as well protected. He looked at the acting Defense Minister.

"What news?"

"Our radar installations on the border have been destroyed. Two airfields already hit; but we got all our aircraft off the ground first. It will be light in 15 minutes; already our fighters are engaging."

"How long until the ground attack?"

"Sometime this morning, sir; not sure just how far away they are. All our border units are on full alert; with orders to fire and retreat; make contact and try and slow them down."

"The Americans?"

"They will be moving to attack with their fighters very soon. They are bringing their AWACS aircraft in close. I have already made arrangements for our fighter controllers to coordinate with them."

Another officer came in with a message and handed it to the Defense Minister. He grimaced.

"Sevastopol reports paratroopers attacking."

"Can they hold?"

"No sir. There is only a little more than a battalion there with some militia; the same at each of the three main airfields. We expect the Russians to put a full brigade of paratroopers on each."

"Is there any good news?'

"Sir, the Americans talked the Turks into letting them base there. They will be hitting the Crimea today. Details are as yet sketchy. I expect contact from their commander within the hour."

"General Parker?"

"Yes sir. While their General Wallace is their theatre commander, it has been made clear that SHE will be the commander in fact."

"Is she really as good as the media claim?'

"Sir she has been extremely successful at all areas of command."

"Let us hope that continues."

Liz's plane landed at Ankara 9 hrs after it took off; which was 1700. The seven hours added to that made it 1100 31 July. She got off the plane and greeted the other Commanders who were all there. They quickly huddled in the Air Force General's plane which was bigger.

Soon as they got in Liz looked at General Briggs.

"Air situation."

"The Ukrainians did better than many thought they would; not as good as they had hoped. I believe they probably have about 40% left. They managed to keep three of their airfields in the west operating and got their fighters down there. I would estimate that for the 65 modern fighter aircraft they lost, they got at least a 2-1 kill ratio. I am willing to bet that the Russians are not happy"

"Ours?"

"We had them wait until the last of the Ukrainians landed and the Russians sent their next wave, which was about an hour ago. So far it looks good; numbers are not yet more than an estimate."

Liz decided to not push; really did not matter anyway. She looked at Smith.

"Ground?"

"They crossed the borders at 0900. Nothing surprising. A direct thrust south to Kiev; light resistance on the border which I bet means that they were ordered to maintain contact. Satellites show they are 20 miles in already. The Ukrainians did manage to lay some mines; that accounts for the slow movement there so far. That thrust is about 40 miles from Chernigov. I would estimate they reach that city by midafternoon if the Ukrainians do not try and fight more. At this rate they would be at Kiev by tomorrow morning or afternoon; but I believe once night falls the Russians will slow even more; and I bet that is when the Ukrainians will start to attack them. The other ground assault is an attempt to surround Kharkov; as it looks right now that will happen either late this afternoon or early this evening. No other ground assaults so far."

"No subsidiary assault towards Kiev?"

Smith grinned. "No sir. And no indications that they will either. Sir they are very confident; they are making very little attempt to force the Ukrainians to divert forces elsewhere. Frankly it is not a very smart campaign so far."

Liz nodded. "Napoleon said it is not polite to interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. I intend to be very polite." She looked at the Admiral.

"Naval?"

"All ships are now in the Black Sea; standing off waiting for the all clear to go for Odessa."

Liz took a deep breath. "I authorized the 82nd to move at once; they will be hitting the Crimean airfields in one hour. General Briggs, what cover will they have?"

"All three wings of my F-16's will cover them; the Marine and Navy aircraft are the backstop. Sir, with a separate AWACS here to coordinate, I do not see much trouble covering them."

Liz nodded. Now for the first hard decision. She looked at the Admiral.

"Start the ships moving to Odessa."

He nodded. It was risky but it was the right move.

Liz looked at her communications officer, Major Tolliver. "When will I have contact with the Ukrainian high command?"

"Making contact now, Sir."

"Very well. I want the Marine Landing force moving at the same time, Admiral."

"Yes General." Liz nodded and looked around. "OK, time I talked to the people we are trying to help."

Timoshenko glared at the Air Force commander. "What do you mean the air situation is uncertain?"

"American Fighters have shown up in large numbers; we are engaging them now."

At that moment a pale Naval officer came up to Timoshenko.

"Sir, the Americans have ships in the black sea; we have been able to identify numerous transport ships. It is their PREPO ships."

"Why was this not seen sooner?"

"Sir you ordered to concentrate our satellites over the Ukraine and the Crimea; this was outside of their range."

"And no one else was looking?"

"Apparently not sir."

He looked furiously at the Air Force chief. "Attack them!"

That was easier said than done as three full wings of F-16s, staggered in sequence to keep one in the air at all times, was a very heavy CAP to penetrate.

Liz sat in the command chair aboard her aircraft and contacted the Ukrainians.

"General Parker, I am acting President Yuri Chernenko. I am my people thank you for your help. What are your intentions?"

"Sir, can you put this on speaker phone?"

"Ah, yes. It is done. My acting Defense Minister and chiefs of Army and Air Force are listening."

"We will be landing our 82nd Airborne on the Crimea just about as we are speaking. They will retake the airfields. We will then start to move in our aircraft and other resources. Our PREPO ships are enroot to ODESSA and will be there by this afternoon. Our Marines will be landing further down the coast. I will not say more as it is just barely possible that the Russians can intercept this."

"That is understood. We will make sure the port is ready for them. My Air Force is already cooperating with yours; but we need to talk as regards the ground combat."

Liz nodded to herself. General Smith was the overall ground commander; but she needed to talk to them face to face as well. It was risky but had to be done.

"I and my ground commander will be in country this evening. We need to coordinate where to meet."

"Yes; we need to make sure this is not found out about. My Army commander will work on this with yours for a meeting."

"Agreed. Just hang on Mr. President; we will get there."

"I pray that is so, General."

Liz had gotten the Admiral and General Smith together. They would wait for the early reports of how the 82nd was doing. She had another thought and looked at the Admiral.

"At full speed, when will the America and the United States be within strike range of the Crimea?"

"One hour, General."

"Can we send the 160th and 161st Super Apache's with them? That would give us 96 Super Apache's to support the 82nd."

He took a deep breath. "That will be tricky; but I think it's possible."

She nodded. "Then do so."

The 82nd hit the airfields even as they were talking; landing just a half a mile away; and the Navy and Marine Fighters were all over the airfields shooting up everything in sight just before they landed. There were 2 squadrons of F-18's at each airfield; and they were very liberal at shooting.

Within one hour of landing, all three brigades were almost on top of the airfields.

1st Brigade had drawn Sevastopol and their commander was looking at the smoking main tower from less than a quarter mile away. The Russian Paratroopers had been roughly handled by the locals; and now his men were making very good progress. He just wished he had more air support that he could control. Then his deputy signaled him.

"Sir! The 160th 1st Battalion is on the horn; they are 30 minutes away and want to know what we need."

"Tell them we need the actual tower hit; and anything to the north of that is a target if it is moving."

Liz sat back and let out the breath she had been holding. The 1st Brigade after 3 hours of fighting had Sevastopol secured. The other two were already secured. She looked at her Support commander, General Dixon.

"Get everything moving you can to those airfields."

She then looked at her staff. "What about the smaller ones?"

"The Russians had not moved on them yet."

"I want the 160th to start moving people to those other airports. Get them secure and start getting them ready for our Helicopters."

She looked at the commander of the 10th. "General Diggs, start securing those airfields."

"Yes sir."

The President had gone on the air at Midnight eastern and had told the American People he had sent the US Military into combat.

"Almost 90 years ago another leader of a European country started to try and take other countries. If he had been stopped early, as many as 50 million people might have lived that otherwise died. I and others have decided that it will not happen again. The United Kingdom will be sending forces; and Poland and Turkey are also supporting us. Naked aggression for no reason cannot be allowed to stand. The Ukraine has not attacked anyone; has not harbored terrorists; is a democracy. It is no threat to a peace loving country. We cannot stand by and do nothing."

Then the SECDEF came on and listed the forces that were being used. It had been decided that the Russians would have figured out who had come to the party by now.

"American forces are under EUCOM, General Ed Wallace. The commander on the ground and the commander in tactical control is General Elizabeth Parker, commander of XVIII Airborne Corps. The 10th Mountain; 82nd Airborne; 101st Airborne; 1st Cavalry Division, 1st Armored Division and the Marines 1st MEF containing the 1st Marine Division are the ground forces involved."

Liz's friends and family sat and worried and prayed.

"General, this is too big of a risk."

"General Briggs?"

"Sir, I believe the risk is relatively minimal at night. But still not negligible. If the Russians somehow get word, they do have dedicated night aircraft."

"General we cannot afford to lose either of you and with all due respect to General Smith, especially not you. No offense General."

"None taken. We have to speak to them face to face and to plan so our forces work together."

Liz was thinking. Then she slowly smiled. Jim and her staff got a bad feeling from that smile. She looked at General Smith.

"Ever ridden in a Super Apache?"

"Liz this is nuts."

"On the contrary; it is the best answer. Any passenger plane is a target; and like a fighter needs an airfield. A helicopter does not. The 160th brought 3 Spares. I can take one of them. And they can send a couple others just in case. But this way I can get to Kiev in a little over 2 hours balls to the walls and land right at their HQ."

"Liz, still."

"War is a risky business Jim. This actually allows me the least amount of risk. And with the digital communications of the Apache I can keep in contact all the way there and back. I intend to head back to the Sevastopol airport or one of the others. Probably will drop General Smith off on the America; he will want to talk to the Marines before they make their landing. This solves a number of problems in one go."

Liz was determined and Jim finally acknowledged defeat. The meeting after that was hurried. It was almost dark. She looked at the briefer.

"What forces have been identified?"

"There are 4 Armored and 2 Infantry or what they call Motor Rifle Divisions attacking towards Kiev. 4 Infantry divisions have just about encircled Kharkov, with 1 Armored Division moving up to support them. There are two more Infantry divisions just across the border centrally located so as to be able to quickly move to support either attack."

"What forces have they left to guard the rear of the movement towards Kiev?"

"They have partialed out the two infantry divisions. Not a very thick screen."

Liz slowly nodded. Just what she had hoped for.

Liz could not help the broad smile as she looked at the Super Apache she was going to fly. It had been over six months but she knew it like the back of her hand. It was a ship that was almost new, but had about 50 hours on it and had just been serviced. It had even been taken up for a 30 minute check flight. She looked at General Smith. He was looking at her with a cocked eye.

'Damn she looks happy. But I cannot complain; she is still probably the best in the world in one.'

"Let's rock General."

Liz realized that she was never quite as happy as when she was tooling a Super Apache through the air. They were taking off with maximum load; the fuel gave them the range to easily get to the Ukrainian command post south of Kiev and back to Ankara if they had to; but Liz had decided to land on the America so that was about 200 miles shorter. They took off at 1900. Liz and two others from the 160th Battalion. They had been flown back to Ankara while spare pilots flew their Apaches and they took the two spares and Liz the third. They were able to hold at just about 190 MPH due to being at sea level and maximum take off weight.

One thing this gave Liz was more time to talk to General Smith one on one; and they could discuss their plans.

General Smith found it very strange in the front seat of a Super Apache at about 20 feet above the Black Sea moving at almost 200 mph.

The AWACS flying out of ANKARA had been told of the small flight; they could barely get a reading on something; which relieved General Briggs. If the AWACS could just barely see them; and was looking right there; no one else could at all. If the Russians had a satellite they might see something but only if they were looking for it.

The Ukrainian president looked at the Map. Kharkov was surrounded. The drive for Kiev was less than 100 miles away; the Russians were still moving at night but very slowly. He had ordered that the majority of the Army prepare to defend Kiev. He looked at the Army commander.

"What is your estimate?"

General Andreyeev was calm but resigned. "Our Defensive position is quite good; but we will be outnumbered in tanks at least 2-1; and overall 3-1. Without help we will not be able to hold. The terrain around there is flat; and they can move along the flank before choosing where to attack. We will have to stretch and thin our lines. It has been dry and will not change; a dry spring means the river is low; it will not be hard for them to ford. They have brought large amounts of bridging equipment with them. We can blow the bridges but frankly I would rather not; force them to use the bridges and we know where the attacks will come."

The President nodded, not surprised. He had served in the Russian army as a young man; he understood brute force very well.

"When will they arrive?"

"We are assuming they will come with helicopters. Since the coordinates are nearby. They will be contacting us when they are within 15 minutes."

Liz and the general had pretty much talked themselves out after the first hour. So now she could just enjoy flying. She figured she needed to find enjoyment wherever she could for the time being. She checked her watch and then the electronic map. Time.

"Valkyrie Lead to Headquarters; we are 15 minutes out."

"Valkyrie Lead we read you clearly. If you wish you can move from the previous point at 165 degrees and 2 clicks and you will have a short walk."

"Roger that Headquarters; will do."

The President and his MOD looked at each other. That had been a woman's voice; so she was close. They moved to the elevator that took them up from the underground command post. Upon reaching the top, the security detail fanned out and checked the area once again. Just to make sure. The Russians had managed to attack the command position once; they could try again.

Liz used the gun site and could clearly see what the satellite pictures had seen; they had been pretty sure that was where the command post was even without the coordinates given. It was about 10 miles south of Kiev and to the west slightly; on the west bank of the river. She brought her Super Apache right to where a man with a flashlight was signaling. Landed and shut down. She smiled and told General Smith.

"Show Time."

The MOD exclaimed. "Those are their Super Apache's. Three of them. I wonder…"

The President was about to ask him what he meant when the lead helicopter opened up its hatches. From the front appeared a rather large man; in typical American uniform. But from the rear seat…

Liz took off her flight helmet and put on her Green Beret. She made it a habit; since it had been presented to her, to wear it when she felt like it. Tonight was a night for it.

In minutes they were whisked downstairs to the command room.

The President formally welcomed them.

"On behalf of the Ukrainian people, we thank America for their timely help. General Parker, General Smith, welcome to the Ukraine."

Liz smiled. "Thank You, Mr. President. I believe with a little luck we can end this war within a week."

The Army Commander spoke. "I would indeed like to hear your plan, General Parker."

Liz nodded and produced a packet and spread the map over a convenient table. General Smith showed them the plan.

"The 1st Marine Division will land here at Mariupol and head straight north. They will make a speed run tonight to get through the Kerchenska gulf. I believe in two days we can be in contact with the Russian forces surrounding Kharkov. I see no reason they will not be able to relieve that city."

Liz took over. "The PREPO ships are just about at the port now. It should take them only one day if things go well to unload. The next day they will be able to start to move north and I believe they will get to the outskirts of Kiev about the same time as the Russians will. They are the 1st Armored and 1st Cavalry."

General Andreyeev began to see the plan. "You wish to attack their flank and drive it in?"

"Not precisely. I am going to drop the 101st and 82nd behind the main body and surround them."

The General could not help the dropped jaw as did every other officer in the room.

Liz smiled. It was her feral smile; the smile of Nemesis.

"What I want is for the Ukrainian Army to hold just above Kiev, along the river; they will form two sides of the box. The two divisions moving up will form the third side; and the two airborne divisions will form the fourth. The Russian tanks will run out of gas very quickly. The two divisions will be dropped 50 miles from their main body. By satellite we have identified where their main fuel dumps are and they will be destroyed. The two airborne divisions will make sure they get no more. The newest Russian tank only has a 100 mile range at most on one tank of gas. Tanks without gas are nothing but an annoyance."

General Andreyeev took a deep breath. He looked at Liz.

"You are serious?"

"Deadly serious. This way no one has to fight a protracted ground battle and suffer thousands of casualties. Your forces have delayed the Russian spearhead sufficiently so this is possible. My intention is not to hold; but to destroy the Russian advance. Capture the finest part of their army. Humiliate them. Not just defeat them."

"General. What are your plans?"

"The Americans are at least 5 to 7 days away from getting to Kiev. By the time they are close we will have it surrounded and we can threaten to destroy it if they do not negotiate. This will not quite be the victory we had hoped but it will still be substantial. We will hold the Capital of Ukraine and its second largest City as well."

"Very well. Do not fail me."

Liz and General Smith spent just over two hours there and then headed back. By the time they had left the Ukrainian general staff was very much in favor of the plan.

Liz got to the America and dropped off General Smith and then moved to Saki Naval Airfield where the 160th had gone. As well as a lot of other helicopter assets from the other divisions. She quickly gathered the commanders of all the Aviation brigades. They had, including the 160th, 7. She was going to have the 161st move to near Kiev as well. So that would give them 8.

Meeting in a conference room at the Naval Base Liz looked at the Brigade commanders.

"OK. This is my plan. The 82nd will parachute in; but the 101st will have to ride in on Helicopters. Using every single one we have, some from the Ukraine and some from the Marines, we can move the 101st in one go to where I want it. The second one will be moving supplies. It will be the largest heliborne attack in history. And if necessary we will do it again and take the 10th if it is needed."

"But general, we do not have the range for that."

"You have the range from just south of Kiev, correct?"

"Yes sir."

"We will fly the 101st there and refuel. The Russians will think they will be used for reinforcement of the Kiev Defenders. And then they will get another surprise."

She then hoped in her Apache and went to Sevastopol, where the 82nd had concentrated along with the 10th. The 101st at the large airfield in the middle of the peninsula. She quickly hoped around the various camps using her borrowed apache.

SECDEF looked at the map. "The PREPO ships are unloading today?"

The Chairman nodded. "Actually they pushed the ships to their limit and a little beyond and got there several hours early; and they started to unload last night. So far so good. By the end of Today two full heavy divisions will be ready to move out tomorrow."

"Air situation?"

"We now have control of the Air; they are basically trying to protect their units and not going anywhere else in the Ukraine. Which is fine with us for the moment."

"General Parker's plan is very aggressive and risky, isn't it?"

"Yes sir but I agree it gives us the best chance to end this without there being protracted heavy battles with thousands of casualties."

Liz had managed to get some sleep early that morning when Jim had flat out told her she was wrong. The Staff backed off; no one wanted to be around to be hit by flying pieces of General Harkness when Doberman tore him apart.

"Liz you are exhausted. Tired Generals make mistakes and you are a very tired General. You are not Super Woman."

Liz started to growl and then stopped. "You are right. Give me 4 hours."

After she went to the tent that had been put aside for her, Jim looked at the others.

"As long as nothing comes up, let her sleep."

The Deputy commander of the XVIII Airborne Corps looked at Jim in admiration.

"You are the bravest sonuvabitch around. No doubt about it. But what do you want me to tell your wife after Doberman turns you inside out, rips off your head and craps down your throat?"

"Tell her I thought it sounded like a good idea at the time."

Liz groaned and slowly rolled over on her bunk and almost fell off. She looked around; groggy. She looked for her watch and read it once; then again. Suddenly very awake she got ready to storm out and tear Jim to pieces. Then she stopped and softly laughed. She had been asleep for 9 hours. She felt a lot better. But hungry as hell. She had taken a shower at the portable ones that had been quickly set up in the huge camp that was at the moment the HQ for the XVIII Airborne Corps. She would have to remember to see to it that General Dixon got props; he had gotten things set up very fast. She quickly dressed and poked her head out of her tent. Her security detail, which consisted of a full A team, was as usual nearby and watchful. Something she had to get used to full time. The Captain and commander of the team saluted and asked.

"Something to eat, General?"

"Ya. Lets go."

Liz spent another hour talking to her troops in the Mess tent; she right off the bat had told the support personnel to not waste any time trying to set up separate messes for the Brass; they would eat with everyone else. She ended up in a corner talking to some 82nd airborne troopers.

"OK, how tough was the first battle?"

"Not as hard as we thought it would be, General. Especially once those Apaches started to rip Ivan a new one. Those paratroops were pretty good, but the locals beat them up pretty well before we got to them, and those Navy and Marine jocks sure unloaded a lot of 20MM on them."

"How were your casualties?"

"Not bad General. We lost some but not many."

Liz finished and headed to the HQ tent. She walked in and looked around. There was a clump around the situation map and suddenly it parted like she was Moses before the Red Sea. She wondered if there were people shaped holes in the side of the tent since it sure emptied fast. All that was left was Jim.

Jim looked at her carefully. She did not seem mad and that was a very bad sign. The maddest he had ever seen her she had not looked mad at all.

"Jim. You let me sleep."

"Liz you needed it."

"Yes I did. Now get those gomers in here; we have a campaign to finish off."

Once they were back in the tent Liz stood up.

"OK what happened while I was sawing logs?"

The G2 went to the map.

"The PREPO ships have just about finished offloading the equipment. Odessa is a big port and we were able to birth all the ships at once. The 1st Cavalry expects to send out its first column at Dusk tonight. The 1st Armored will be a few hours behind. They will night march the first night and into tomorrow afternoon. Baring problems they should be 50 miles north of Odessa before they stop."

He then pointed towards Mariupol.

"Before you sacked out they had landed. They are about to start moving north. The Russians tried to attack early this morning but our CAP beat them off.

He then pointed at Kiev. "Leading Russian columns are now 70 miles from the city. At the current rate of advance they will be at the outskirts in 36 hours."

Liz got up and looked at the map closely. She looked at the G2. "ETA on the 1st Armored and 1st Cavalry where we want them?"

"Best we can do is about 48 hours General. We will have to refuel all vehicles at least once and that will take time. There are good roads but best speed will be about 35 MPH. It is right at about 250 miles."

Liz slowly nodded. "OK. We need to slow Ivan down. Suggestions?"

General Smith had just arrived and was looking at the map. "at Kozelets there are some bridges. If they could be dropped I think that would delay them for some hours." Liz moved beside him and looked at it as well, then at General Briggs. "Is that a problem?"

"No General, not at all."

"Then drop them and every bridge between there and Kiev."

"Yes sir."

Liz then looked around at the assembled officers. "You all know the plan; but the big movement will not be for 2 days. So go to your commands and make sure they are getting rest. Once we go no one will be getting rest."

The next two days were strangely quiet. The Russian Air Force, badly mauled, just watched over the column and the area around Kharkov. The US and Ukraine flyers just played the waiting game.

Timoshenko looked at the General. "You were supposed to be at Kiev yesterday!"

"Sir, the Americans have dropped every bridge. It has slowed us down by almost 18 hours. But we are within 25 miles of Kiev."

"And the two American Divisions are only 25 miles from Kiev as well."

"Then we will meet them in combat."

"Very well." He did not ask about Kharkov. It really did not matter. Kiev really was the key to this war.

Liz looked at the map. "How far do the Marines have to go to Kharkov?"

"They are within 50 miles of the front lines."

She nodded and turned to Briggs. "I want a serious air bombardment of their positions before the Marines attack."

"Yes sir."

She then looked at the map of the Kiev area. Then at the Ukraine liaison officer.

"Your ground forces are in position?"

"Yes general." She nodded and looked at the map one more time. Then at the rest of the officers assembled. The tent was bulging despite being pretty big.

"OK. It is now 0800 on August 5th. We will launch operation Kill Switch at 1900. That will allow loading at just before dusk. The 101st will be moved 300 miles to Cherkassy by 2300. Refuel and then leave at 0400 and arrive at Chernigov at around dawn. The 82nd will load at 0400 and drop at Dawn. That will be the easy part. Then the Russians will realize the plan and go nuts."

She looked at General Dixon. "The refueling operation for hundreds of helicopters. Describe it once again."

"We have beacons for every battalion. They will be spread out over an area of 100 square miles. We have quietly moved by truck the refueling bladders and pumps. 10 per battalion. So it should take only 90 minutes at most to refuel every battalion." She nodded then looked at the Deputy commander of the XVIII Airborne corps who had been tasked to plan this.

General Roy Windom knew his entire career would turn on this operation. Sink or swim. Not to mention a war depended on it. And thousands of American lives depended on it. No pressure here.

"Each Battalion will leave at 5 Minute intervals. They will stay in formation and use their running lights which will be on and blinking. They will be leaving from three separate bases. We have 10 search and rescue helicopters ready to respond. Each Battalion will have its own call sign. We will also be staggering their altitudes. From 2000 to 5000 feet. Where they are going is also figured into the plan."

He then quickly sketched the separation factors. There were over 500 helicopters involved. The 101st like the 82nd would be going without most of its sustainment personnel. Just the sharp end of the stick. Supplies would be dropped by transport planes. 9000 men would be moving; by far the largest simultaneous Helicopter assault in history.

Liz thought about it for the fourth or fifth time since Roy had thought it up; she had found nothing wrong with it before and didn't now. She looked around the tent.

"Anyone see any problems?"

There was only silence.

"OK. Now as regards the end points?"

"Last night Special Forces parachuted in and are already where they need to be. They have beacons and radios. They will guide not only the 101st but the 82nd exactly where they need to be. Over 80 miles from the Russian forces at Kiev. And almost as far from the Border where the other Russian forces are. There is only about one battalion of Russian infantry in that immediate area and they are pretty much spread right down the road protecting the convoys."

Liz looked at General Briggs.

"At 0600 in the morning A-10's with a low cover of F-16's and a High Cover of F-22's will go right down the highway destroying everything on it. Concentrating on fuel trucks. At the same time F-15E's will be striking the four fuel dumps the Russians have established along the road. At that point as long as the Airborne forces can prevent any more coming, the Russian armor will be trapped. It is doubtful they can even get close to the Airborne before their fuel runs out."

Liz nodded and looked at General Smith.

"The 1st Cavalry and 1st Armored will then move to flank the Russian forces and box them in from the side."

Liz then moved to the map. "At that point I will free the 2 battalions of Super Apache's and 6 Battalions of Regular Apaches to go after the Russian armor. That will be just under 200 of them hunting."

She then looked at General Briggs again. "I expect Timoshenko to then order the Russian Air Force to do everything it can."

He nodded. "We will be waiting, General."

The president of the Ukraine looked at the map then at the MOD.

"Will it work?"

"Yes sir I believe it will."

The President of the US looked at his SECDEF.

"Will it work?"

"Yes sir I believe it will."

Liz looked at her watch and heard the helicopters begin to take off. Each one separate on takeoff by 5 minutes and by altitude. She took a deep breath and walked back into the HQ tent.

"Where are they going?"

"North."

"I know north but where North?"

"We do not know."

"FIND OUT!"

Hours later. "They are landing near Cherkassy, clearly meant to reinforce the Armored units they sent. That is foolish. Light units have very little use fighting tanks."

"She is desperate. That is good."

Liz haunted the tent until Jim once again told her she needed to sleep. Reluctantly she went to her tent and was surprised as she fell asleep.

Jim went and hit the sack as well. Liz woke up at 0500; she was surprised but she had gotten almost 6 hours of sleep. She headed for the Operations tent.

"How many did we lose?'

"8 Helicopters developed problems and had to land. None over the water. No injuries, no crashes."

Liz let out another deep breath. "No collisions?"

"None, General."

"Otherwise?"

"82nd left on schedule one hour ago. They will be dropping in a little over half an hour. The first helicopters will be landing at their targets in about half an hour. So far no problems. The A-10's will be starting to make their runs in about half an hour as well."

"0600 is going to be a very busy hour. Since I know the Marines will be attacking at the same time."

And so it went. The A-10's ravaged the road for over 80 miles from just below the Airborne to the very edge of where the Russian tanks had massed. Hundreds of vehicles were destroyed- not a single fuel tanker was left operational. All four of the fuel dumps were destroyed by multiple hits. 2 A-10's were hit; one was forced to eject but was rescued in minutes by one of the returning helicopters. The other made it back to its base in Poland. None of the F-15E's were damaged; and the Russian jets that had managed to get up early were swatted like flies by the F-22's guided by AWACS. The F-16's had a very boring time.

President of Russia Timoshenko looked at his Defense Minister.

"What do you mean we are defeated?"

"The Americans have destroyed not only all our fuel dumps but all the available tankers. Right now our tanks and other vehicles only have the fuel in their tanks and no more. Even if we could get more tankers through the Airborne Screen, it would be several days before they could make it. The road is strewn for 80 miles with wreckage. Our tanks are sitting targets. They have control of the air. And that is not all. Also this morning the American Marine Division began its attack preceded by a fierce air bombardment. They have already broken though; the siege of Kharkov is over."

Timoshenko looked at the Air Force Commander. "What are you waiting for? Attack them."

"Sir, we will lose most of the rest of our fighter and bomber strength if we do so."

"DO it!" Then he looked at the Army Commander. "They will not retreat; they will use the rest of their fuel to attack. Attack now."

At 0700 Liz gave the order and all the Apache's that had moved into the area where the transport helicopters were took off; just ahead of the returning mass. They headed for the Russian tank forces.

Timoshenko stormed back into the Command room.

"Have my orders been carried out?"

The Army commander stood up. "Just half an hour ago, the Americans had all their Apache attack helicopters assault our armored forces. We have taken very heavy losses. We might have lost as much as a third."

The Air Force commander also stood up. "I just received a call from Air Command. If we launch our attack now, we will be outnumbered badly. They have over 400 fighters up right now. We have only 300 available to attack, of that only 200 are fighters."

"I do not care. Attack now."

At that moment the rest of the cabinet moved into the room.

The Prime Minister led them.

"By unanimous vote, we have decided to end this war. Now."

"I am the president. You will follow your orders!"

"Not any more. By a second unanimous vote, you are relieved of your office and placed under arrest for endangering the State."

Liz looked at the communications officer then took the phone.

"This is General Parker."

"I am the Prime Minister of Russia. President Timoshenko has been relieved of his office. We request an immediate cease fire."

Liz almost could not stand; she almost collapsed. Idly she looked at her watch. It was 0845, 6 August 2023. And another war was over.

"Very well Mr. Prime Minister. But I will need to consult with our Ukrainian allies."

"Of course."

The communications officer nodded to the President.

"General Parker is on the line, sir. She says it is urgent."

"General Parker. Things are still going well?"

"Mr. President, I just received a call from the Russian Prime Minister. He told me that President Timoshenko has been relieved of his office and he wants an immediate cease fire."

The President suddenly had to sit down and did. Everyone in the room tensed.

"I will tell my forces immediately General. My thanks to you and your people. We shall remember you."

He then stood up. "Timoshenko has been deposed. Their Prime Minister has requested a cease fire. Get out the word that in 10 minutes there will be no more firing unless fired upon."

Liz then picked up the command line to the Pentagon.

"I need to talk to the President immediately."

The President was in the situation room despite the fact that it was midnight. He turned as his aide called to him.

"General Parker on the line sir."

"General Parker."

"Mr. President I was just called by the Russian Prime Minister. He told me that Timoshenko has been relieved of his office and wants an immediate cease fire. I have called the Ukrainian President and he agreed."

The President closed his eyes and then opened them. "Congratulations General. I will try the hotline and see who answers. If we find out anything different we will let you know but as of now handle it as you see fit."

Liz slowly walked to the nearest chair and sat in it. All around her people were yelling and shouting and celebrating. Elizabeth Parker, Lieutenant General, US Army, Commander XVIII Airborne Corps, cried.

Liz got herself together enough to join in the celebrations; of course they were giving her way too much credit. Yes her plan had been bold and aggressive; but the Enemy had also made it pretty easy. IF they had put two more Infantry divisions watching their supply lines it could have been very hard and bloody. IF they had pushed a supporting attack straight west to meet at Kiev her plan could not have worked at all. But Liz knew she had been lucky in that her enemy had been very arrogant and overconfident and careless. Not that she was complaining.

Liz after shaking hands with just about everyone took a deep breath.

"OK, people we still have a job to do. We must make sure all units know; and that if attacked they may respond. That road is going to have to be cleared for the Russians to leave. We need to start talking to the Ukrainians about those and other considerations. We will have to set up procedures for the Russian withdrawal." She then looked at Jim. "What were our casualties?"

Jim Harkness was trying to get his feet back on the ground; this was an incredible moment but he had to remember that he still had a job to do. He pulled out some notes.

"Aircraft totals: NO F-22's or F-15E's were lost. 25 F-16's were lost and 14 damaged to varying degrees. 4 Super Apaches were lost; 8 Damaged to different degrees. 4 regular Apache's lost, 5 damaged. No Little Birds were lost due to enemy fire or badly damaged. 6 Blackhawks were damaged but not destroyed. 2 Chinooks were damaged. Total personnel lost are 27 dead and 21 wounded with 3 missing believed captured."

Liz contemplated that. Very low losses to anyone else still they hurt for a commander who up until that moment had lost very few. She made a personal vow to write a letter to the family of everyone killed. She looked up at Jim.

"Ground Forces."

"The 1st Cavalry and 1st Armored saw very little action; none killed or missing and only 11 wounded to various degrees, none life threatening. 10th Mountain had NO casualties, not even to accidents; but then they mostly did guard duty. 82nd Airborne took the highest casualties, almost all in the Crimea in the first battle. 81 dead, 156 wounded. 101st Airborne took only 5 dead and 17 wounded before the cease fire was declared. 1st Marine MEF did not lose any Aircraft destroyed; only 11 damaged. Their ground forces lost no tanks destroyed, 11 damaged. Other vehicle losses total 27. 29 dead or missing and 87 wounded." He quickly checked his figures then announced.

"Total casualties in personnel are 152 dead and 292 wounded."

Liz knew she should be joyful at the incredibly light casualties. But she could not. She could only think of the 152 families that had lost someone. She took a deep breath and looked at Jim.

"I will need the name and address of the families of all killed. They all deserve a personal letter from me. I will also need the details of where they died and how. I want those letters to be done right."

Jim silently nodded. This surprised him not at all. At that moment Roy stepped forward.

"General, I agree that we need to mourn those we lost. But do not dwell on those numbers. For what we accomplished it was an unbelievably light cost."

Liz looked at him. "I know that inside my head, Roy. It is my heart that aches for the families of those that lost their lives. They will never think the cost was light."

At that moment her G2 spoke up. "General Parker, just got a communication from General Wallace. He says a load of Reporters are on their way and he could not stop them; orders from SECDEF to let them in."

Liz wearily nodded. "Let him know I very much appreciate that he was able to keep them from bothering me up till now. But sooner or later we have to take on this particular pestilence."

As a matter of fact the Media had been angry indeed about being left behind. General Wallace had blandly said that the need to keep it as secret as possible had tied his hands on the matter. And the effort to transport the troops had required the requisition of 30 747's from the Commercial Reserve on short notice, which also had to be kept top secret. The media knew this was a crock of crap, but were smart enough not to complain as their readers and viewers would have torn them a new one. The media was slowly realizing that not a whole lot of people anywhere either trusted them or liked them anymore. They had been forced to rely upon the Press conferences at the Pentagon and at EUCOM HQ in Poland.

The president had not appeared except for the initial statement. Now that victory was assured he appeared again. He waited until 0800 ET before doing so.

"My fellow Americans, as by now you have undoubtedly heard that this sad chapter in world history is over. The guns are silent once again. By dint of great effort and sacrifice the Military of the United States has triumphed again. The People of the Ukraine can once again live in peace. Their military despite great odds took the battle to their enemies and set the stage for our forces to finish the job. My congratulations go to every member of our Armed forces who were involved in this conflict. It was through their efforts that we were able to triumph in such a short time with such a relatively small cost. But once again we must remember that to a nation what is a small cost is not the same for that family. 152 Americans lost their lives in this conflict. Remember them while you celebrate this great victory." He looked around and took a deep breath. That was the easy part.

"Questions."

"Mr. President, it seems clear that the US was not caught completely by surprise as we have confirmed that the US Navy PREPO ships left North Carolina a full five days before the conflict began. Just how much warning did we have?"

"As in the past I will not comment on intelligence matters. I will say that national intelligence agencies did manage to figure things out in enough time that we were able to respond as we did."

"MR. President, the UN Secretary General claims that we should have contacted him before we took action. How do you respond?"

"With all due Respect to the General Secretary, I had more important things to worry about then contacting him."

That got a few blinks around the room; it was known that the President did not like the current Secretary General, but that had been very blunt.

"Mr. President, what are your thoughts on the statement from the Ukrainian government that former Russian President Timoshenko should be tried for War Crimes?"

"It is clear that he was the main person in the Russian Leadership that pushed for this war and wanted to continue it even after it was clear that Russia had been defeated. So I think that it is a valid question that the International War Crimes Tribunal needs to consider."

"Mr. President, …"

And it went on for another 20 minutes before it was halted. None of the questions had been all that good; overall it was a poor performance by the Washington Press corps that even many reporters admitted.

Meanwhile at 1600, just 7 hours after the Cease Fire had been proclaimed, Liz had to give her own Press Conference. The Ukrainian government had offered her the HQ building of the Saki Naval Base for it and Liz had agreed. The General who was the official Liaison with XVIII Airborne Corps offered to ban the Reporters but Liz had smiled and said

"NO, that will just cause more troubles down the road. I need to face them and get it over with."

Her PR people had tried to give her a stack of prepared answers but Liz had decided against it. She had always done well before relying on her own instincts and this was no time to change.

There were exactly 200 members of the international Media in the large room when Liz entered. General Smith was the one to announce "ATTENTION." He and the rest filed in behind Liz. She took a deep breath, knowing that without doubt there were probably more than a billion watching.

"Good Afternoon. Before going to questions, I will make a statement.

"To all those in my command, thank you. You did very well indeed. To those families that have lost a loved one, my sincere and heartfelt condolences. I have prided myself on for years not losing anyone in my command or under the protection of my command. This has been both a great and terrible experience; great in that we won; terrible in that we still lost 152 brave American servicemen. We must never forget. To the Acting Ukrainian President and his people and his military, you got a lot of the work done yourselves and never let anyone tell you different. To General Wallace, who facilitated the support and did a lot of diplomatic heavy lifting, a great thank you. To General Smith, my ground commander, for getting it done so well. To General Briggs, my Air Force commander, you made the sky's friendly for the whole time; we did not lose one member of our ground forces or any of our helicopters to air attack. To Admiral Johnson, running the Straits of Kershekva at night and at full speed will be talked about for a long time to come. To General Dixon, who kept us fed and fueled and ready to fight, a VERY WELL DONE. To my Deputy Commander of XVIII Airborne Corps, General Windon, congratulations for planning and executing the largest heliborne assault in history and a huge key to our success. To General Harkness, my Chief of Staff, for keeping it all in gear and for forcing me to get some rest. Tired Generals make mistakes and he made sure I never got that tired. To all of my staff for their efforts; you are equally responsible for our victory. I want to thank the Government and People of Poland for giving us the bases that were so important; and the Government and People of Turkey for doing the same. Those were so very important. Now for questions." She braced herself.

"General Parker, the Pentagon said that you had come up with the plan for the entrapment of the Russian attack force on the Ukrainian Capital of Kiev. It has been said that it was one of the most audacious and risky plans ever tried. Why did you think you needed to take that risk?"

"Conventional tactics would have been to dig in and repel attacks. That battle could have lasted weeks and cost thousands of casualties. By attacking as they did, the Russian forces left themselves open to being cut off and surrounded. I chose to take that risk rather than take the casualties."

"General Parker, when were you warned about a possible attack?"

"That is an intelligence matter and I will not comment on it. However it should be pointed out that the Rhetoric of the former Russian President had been consistent and harsh for over a year. History is replete with examples of nations ignoring such comments and paying the price. Europe well remembers, I believe, ignoring the rants of Adolph Hitler for far too long. He could have been stopped and marginalized; tens of millions of people could have been saved; if those in power at the time had had the courage and sense to take action. We were not going to make the same mistake twice in a century."

"General are you comparing former president Timoshenko with Adolph Hitler?"

"There is very little resemblance outside of the fact that both started wars."

"General Parker, your career has been remarkable. For anyone, but especially for a woman. To what do you owe your success?"

"To my mother first of all for raising me right. To my first sergeant as part of the 3rd ID, Sergeant Axton, for really counseling me. My First commanding officer, Captain Simmons, for a great example to learn from. I could go on. The friends I made who helped and encouraged me. My husband for being able to accept such a very different type of wife. My children, who have always been such a joy. The US military by and large did not try and keep me down but encouraged me. I have been incredibly lucky and clearly have enjoyed the favor of God. There are so many but those are just a few. Ask any successful person and if they are honest the answer will not be very different."

"General Parker, what is next for you?"

"Packing up and going home." And at that point she ended the press conference, leaving the reporters disappointed but not the audience.

She escaped and went back to the command tent. Sat down and took a long drink of water and just relaxed. A few minutes later Jim came in. The tent was empty except for them at the moment.

"Liz, if I have not said it before I am saying it now. Thank you for pulling me along for the ride."

"Jim you have been a vital part of our success these last 9 years. Do not sell yourself short."

"I would have retired at Lt Colonel and not really accomplished all that much in my life but for you. No matter what you claim."

"Now you made me blush. I guess I better relax right now, since there still is a lot to get done. Any incidents to report?"

"So far nothing concerning us. The Ukrainians have got bulldozers heading up the road to clear it out. Their Defense Minister contacted us a little bit ago. We might have to see to it that the Russians are supplied sufficiently so that they can leave. Fuel water and food."

"Talk to General Dixon. Whatever they need us to do we do. What about the situation around Kharkov?"

"The Russians are already moving back and will be out of the Ukraine there by tonight. And the Russian commander of the center force has informed us that they have 3 of our people as prisoners of war."

"Good. Make sure arrangements are made to get them out ASAP."

"The Ukraine MOD would like you to visit their HQ at your convenience."

Liz who had been relaxing with her eyes closed opened them and looked at Jim.

"What is it about?"

"I think probably to thank you face to face."

"OK. Set it up for tomorrow morning."

"Oh and there is a message from the commander of the Royal Commandos. Says you could have at least let them do something."

Liz grinned. "When you can get him on the phone. By the way, the first units out of here need to be the 160th and 161st. See to it."

"Right."

In the US many had been watching the Press conference. Many marveled at General Elizabeth Parker. The media made a point of going over her entire career just before the Press Conference as well.

In Savanna, Georgia three good friends had been praying all week and had taken off from work to watch. Maria had tears in her eyes once it was done.

"When I next talk to her I am going to try and convince her to finish it and leave. She does not need this anymore. I know just how bad the losses are hurting her."

Isabelle nodded. "I agree. She needs to retire and settle down and just live."

Tess sighed. "I hope so. We need to try and convince her that enough is enough."

Other friends got together the next day for their bi weekly get together in Nashville Tennessee. It was a gloomy day but rain did not appear likely. They talked amongst themselves.

Ellen was pensive. "Think she would listen?"

Vicki was determined. "She has done enough. She could care less about a fourth star or making it to Chairman. And it would be a lot worse there since she no longer commanded anyone and had to sit through meeting after meeting."

Jesse was hopeful. "I talked to Maria the other day. She and her oldest friends are also going to try and talk Liz into pulling the pin."

Susan sighed. "Maybe if we all show a united front and enlist her mother as well we can pull it off. It is time Liz started living for Liz."

Nancy cuddled with Ted and sighed after turning off the TV set. She had stayed home to watch; her boss had flat out told her to. She was going to retire that year anyway, she was already training the young woman that would be replacing her. "She looked tired. Maria called me last night and she and the others are determined to try and talk Liz into retiring. What do you think?"

"Hon, I think it is a good idea. God Knows she does not owe anyone and she should live the rest of her life as she chooses. But she might choose to stay in for a while if she thinks she can change things for the better."

"I think I agree with Maria. I am going to ask her to really think about it; but I will not try and pressure her."

Aliya cuddled with her husband and thought about her mother. Liz had become her real mother in every way; she barely remembered her first one. It had been a cold and bleak life which became a real life once a beautiful angel had swooped down and saved her.

"I want to wait until she gets back to Bragg before telling her. We will be there waiting for her. You won't have trouble getting time off?"

"Not a chance. The boss pretty much ordered me to."

Max sat next to James as they watched the press conference. James looked up at him after it was over.

"Mom coming home soon?

"Yeah, sport, Mom is coming home soon." Max thought about Maria's phone call she had made the previous night. Maria was trying to get Nancy and all of Liz's friends to convince Liz to call it quits. He thought about that.

He did not want to pressure Liz; but he could see their point and he certainly wanted Liz home and not in danger. Able to relax and enjoy life. She was only 40 years old. She was stubborn about not dyeing her hair; that was the only way anyone would think she was that old. They had talked about it; after this she could get an advance on an autobiography that would be absolutely humungous and ensure they would never have to work again. But what would they do? He was trying to imagine Liz just sitting back and doing nothing and the image would not come. She needed to be busy. She needed something to do. Flying would be something she wanted to do; but as a job? What was there? He realized he needed to talk to the rest of them first before they descended en masse on Liz.

Elizabeth Parker's future was also on the minds of more than a few in Washington. The Congressman had decided that enough was enough and was going to retire; Liz certainly did not need him anymore; had not for quite a while. He was quietly talking to some of his colleagues that he did not mind being with outside of the daily work. Not many of them anymore, which was another reason he wanted to call it quits.

"So, since you know her better than anyone here, what should she do next?"

"I do not KNOW her that well, Sam. I know her really only slightly. I just happen to owe her my life and think she is the finest person I know. She has less than a year as XVIII Airborne Corps Commander. Two more years of that; she will be 42. Now the pressure to give her star number 4 will be huge and I bet that comes soon; and thus they would have to move her out of the XVIII. Though they could leave her there."

"Frankly I would say that is the best place for her as she has shown. Outside of another world war she would be the first to go and should command anyway. Make a lot of people feel more secure."

"You will get no argument from me. She might be the finest senior tactical commander the US Army has had since Patton."

"You know, one of the guys I know is a military historian. He flat out told me that it is eerie how alike those two are as regards the Military. Patton was a demon for training his people and having them ready for the unexpected. So does she. Patton never made a frontal assault if he could help it; same with her. He favored movement to take your enemy off balance whenever possible; so does she. Never play defense if you can help it; same with her. And he had no patience at all with politics or the like and while she is a lot more diplomatic is the same there, too."

"She is a LOT more diplomatic. Of course with Patton that was a low bar to hop over anyway. But there are a lot of similarities. Then again you look at the best Generals in History and a lot of them had the same traits. The best do it the same way whether it is 2023 AD or 2023 BC. What she does was talked about by Sun Tzu 2500 years ago."

"So after XVIII with 4 stars what next? Army Vice Chief of Staff?"

"Probably. Then Chief of Staff and then Chairman. If she wants it; and I am not very sure she does. It would not totally surprise me if she retired soon."

"You are kidding? Pass up all that?"

"Pass up all what? More meetings and politics and crap like that. All of which she hates with a passion."

The other congressman besides the two talking was a lot younger. He had been quietly listening.

"Any chance we could get her to run for office? You name it and she would win it in a walk."

"About as much chance as a Vampire to sunbathe willingly."

The President was talking to the Chairman and SECDEF.

"There is already pressure to promote her to full General; and some are talking down the road making her the next 5 Star."

The Chairman widened his eyes at the 5 star comment. "That was pushed around a little bit for Powell and Schwarzkopf but it died away."

SECDEF was thoughtful. "I was just starting out in Congress when that was going on. I do not think the talk was ever that serious. But I get the feeling that this time it just might be. But then again that would be a few years down the road and baring her pulling off something like this again I doubt it would last until then."

The President grinned. "With her record, saying she could not top something and betting on it would have been a losing proposition for at least the last 15 years."

The Chairman grinned as well. "No argument at all on that sir. NONE at all."

SECDEF shook his head. "Still it is something to think about. I think the pressure to promote her is going to increase hugely. And honestly it is entirely warranted. We could still keep her at XVIII for the time being until the Vice Chief of Staff moves up in a year. Put her there for a couple of years to learn the Pentagon and the like then move her to Chief of Staff. Then to Chairman."

The current Chairman nodded. "Sounds like a plan to me."

"What about more immediate recognition?"

SECDEF was prompt. "Presidential Unit Citation for XVIII Airborne Corps and all units that served with it. DSC for her. And then promote her as well. No one could say we were chintzy."

The President nodded. "And a Parade in Washington DC. We did it for Desert Storm and it was nowhere near as easy and a lot more important overall."

When informed by the President the Congressman sighed. Well they could give Liz a real nice sendoff anyway, he thought.

Totally unaware of the various plans made by others for her future, Liz got down to the grind of the details. Getting tankers to refuel the remaining Russian tanks so they could be sent home, as well as remaining vehicles. Ukraine gave permission for the Russians to send hundreds of trucks to pick up the troops that needed to be evacuated. Over the next week all this was done.

Liz looked at Jim. "OK, who has gone in the last four days?"

"160th, 161st, the Marines are loading now; the 1st Cav and 1st Armored are also loading. Most of their people not needed for it are gone or going now. 10th Mountain is gone. 101st is starting to leave. 82nd will be the last to go; they want to wait for as many of their wounded as they can. By this time tomorrow what is left will be most of the 82nd and our wounded. Now it is going to take a couple of weeks to remove the rest of our equipment and the like. General Dixon thinks he can get it done by the end of the month for sure."

Liz nodded. Her meeting with the Ukrainian's had indeed been a thank you more than anything else. She had to keep telling herself to not let all the praise go to her head.

Liz stretched and rubbed her eyes. "So how long before we can fold our tents and steal away?"

"No way we can steal away. Let alone not get noticed when we arrive."

"Yeah, I know."

Two days later Liz made the decision to bring the HQ of the XVIII Airborne Corps home; the last of the wounded was going to be transferred to Ramstein and then when possible home. The 82nd had just about left the previous day. Now only some support troops packing things up were left. The PREPO ships were on their way home; the equipment would have to be switched out and what was used refurbished.

On Friday, August 11, 2023 XVIII Airborne Corps HQ company boards the C-17 with all their equipment; while the Command Staff boards the C-20. Liz leaves the Crimea at 0900. They refuel over the Atlantic and arrive at Ft Bragg at exactly 0900 due to the strange way Time Zones work. Of course there is a band and color guards and the media. But most of all is their families. Liz is the last off the plane and comes down the stairs to cheers and music and the like. She marches to the Podium.

"XVIII Airborne Corps. ATTENTION. Well done. DISMISSED." Then heads over to hug her Husband and children and mother and her other friends who are all there. She ignores the Media and they are driven off to the party going on at the Mess Hall. Liz stays and makes the rounds then goes off to the room that has been reserved for her and her party. Maria and Isabelle and Tess and Nancy and Ted and Max and Aliya and James and Les. Aliya then tells Liz she will be a grandmother in 6 months. By far the best news she had gotten in a very long time.

Max had talked to Maria and she in turn had talked to the others about their plan to try and convince Liz to retire. They all had to admit that he was right; so Maria ordered everyone to put on their thinking caps. When they talked to Liz they had to have a lot of options ready to go.

That night Liz and Max snuggle. She is very content.

Liz looked at the message the next day as she returned to her office.

"A parade?"

"A parade. Right down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capital. Where you will be welcomed by a Joint Session of Congress. I imagine some medals will be passed out as well."

Liz groaned. "And I will have to make a speech as well."

"Yep. This will happen in 2 weeks on the 26th of August."

"If I remember what I saw as a kid the one they had for Desert Storm they marched in BDU's. So we will do the same."

The next two weeks passed by as they began to reset the table and get everyone back to where they were before they left. Liz began to quietly start to write the letters for those they had lost. She did not use a form letter, just wrote it as she felt it. She was guilty that she was glad that none of the people lost she knew, though the 101st lost some that had been there when she had been in command. The 161st had not had anyone killed and that cheered her up. Before she left that Friday for the parade, she had in two weeks gotten half of them done and mailed out. She had explained what each person had been doing when they died; and why.

Jim felt that Liz could wait on this but knew she would not. That was just the way she was.

All across the country parents and wives and relatives began to receive letters postmarked Commanding General, XVIII Airborne Corps, Ft Bragg, North Carolina. If the person had been unmarried, she addressed it to the parents; if married to the Wife. She was quietly glad she had none that had not had either. Though sad for those close to him.

A Wife still numb from losing her husband read the letter and cried. A father tried to hold back tears and could not. A mother could not finish it the first time; nor the second time. And so went the so called low casualty list.

Liz had a meeting that evening with SECDEF before the Parade that was at noon on Saturday. She had sent out word to the units involved that they should choose who would participate. After all they could not have the whole 150,000 that had been involved. It was decided that 1000 from each of the Divisions would come; and 100 from each of the other units, and ships. So the total for the Parade would be right at 7000 or so. They would form up at Pershing Park and Liz would lead them down Pennsylvania Avenue to The Capital. She would then march up the steps and into the Capital to give a short speech to the Joint Session of Congress. She would then leave and in front of her people would be given the DSC while XVIII Airborne Corps received the Presidential Unit Citation and the Thanks of Congress. She had then asked that there be busses to pick the troops up so that they could get in out of the August sun. She had decided on her speech.

SECDEF had been told by the President to not mention one thing that would happen. He was told to tell her that her future was laid out.

"General Parker, just wanted to let you know that we have decided on your future."

Liz hoisted an eyebrow. "Well I am sitting down so let fly, Sir."

"You will be posted to Vice Chief of Staff sometime, then Chief of Staff then Chairman."

Liz sat there and thought about that. It was not a shock now. She could see all that happening. That took care of the next 10 years or so. Guess it was nice to know. Of course the question was, did she want it? She was going to have to think about this very hard.

Liz looked up at the sky. It was a fairly cloudy day but no rain. It would be about 80 and humid, but her people would not bake in the sun. Not anywhere near as bad as it could have been. So her luck was still holding. She looked around at the HQ Company. They with her would lead off the Parade. Right behind the XVIII Airborne Corps Color Guard. Right behind her would be Jim and Roy. Then the rest of the staff and HQ Company. Then after that the 82nd AB, The Marines, Navy, 101st, Support Troops, 10th Mountain, 1st Cav and the Air Force, the SOAR's and then 1st Armored. Their commander had asked to be tail end Charlie. Liz asked him why.

"We get to stay in the shade longer."

Liz had ordered that the 82nd start the rest of the parade due to the fact that they suffered the most casualties. After that she had the senior officers draw numbers for who went where.

Liz received the signal and ordered the Color Guard to uncase and march. And her right behind them.

On TV once again the commentators remarked on how tiny Elizabeth Parker was.

At a steady march it took them about 15 minutes. Liz marched up to the Podium that was empty and reviewed her people as they marched by and then formed up. It took almost an hour for them all to march in and form up. Then she ordered

"XVIII AIRBORNE CORPS. AT EASE." Then marched into the Capital.

She waited outside the door as the Sergeant At Arms announced her.

"General Elizabeth Parker."

She marched into a standing ovation. The Speaker announced that she and the XVIII Airborne Corps and all who fought with them had the Thanks of Congress and the American People. Liz then moved to the microphone.

"On the behalf of all those that fought with us; and those that cannot be here today; and those that we lost I thank you. There has been more than enough praise for anyone but the thanks of Congress means a lot to all of us. Now my people are standing outside in the heat and I want to set them loose. Thank You once again." They then stood and applauded as she marched down the aisle and out the door.

She marched down the steps to the assembled troops and took her place in front as the Members of congress streamed out and gathered on the Capital Steps. Then The President came through and Liz called for "ATTENTION" as Hail to the Chief was played and the President came to the podium. Then the National Anthem was played and suddenly hundreds of helicopters and Fighter Jets flew over the city in tight formations. Liz was surprised at this; they had managed to keep that secret from everyone, including her. Still she thought it was a nice touch. Then the president gave a short speech thanking all who had fought. Then

"General Elizabeth Parker." And she marched up to the podium. The President put the DSC around her neck as the Citation was read; then the Presidential Unit Citation was read. Then came the unexpected. While Liz stayed at attention the President Pro Tempore of the Senate came forward.

"Mr. PRESIDENT. The Senate of the United States of America, with the unanimous approval of The House of Representatives, has this day by unanimous vote approved your nomination of Lieutenant General Elizabeth Parker to the rank of FULL GENERAL of the United States Army, effective this date." Then he and the President took off the 3 stars and put on 4 stars and Liz managed to not fall over in shock.

Then Jim Harkness yelled. And the entire group yelled as well and then threw their hats into the air. 7000 and more hats went flying. It looked very impressive on TV.

That night at the White House a formal ball was given for the XVIII Airborne Corps. Liz had to scramble to get the stars to complete her Mess Dress Class A uniform. She looked around and thought for the hundredth or so time how had she ever gotten to this point.

THE END.


End file.
